Dog Will Hunt
by purefoysgirl
Summary: This is outside of my other story arc. Rufus develops a disturbing but intriguing interest in his disturbing and intriguing subordinate, Reno. DARKFIC READ AT OWN RISK!Yaoi! Won the 2009 Genesis Award-Best Slash Romance! Thanks Etrix!
1. Chapter 1

"I can show it to you if you want."

That sentence, spoken with scathing, bored disdain, hung in the air until he thought that he might, perhaps, just stop breathing altogether.

"I beg your pardon?" Rufus politely inquired, putting his pen down, finding his breath again. The paperwork could wait. Inanimate objects had more patience than his temper-laden, red-headed Turk.

Reno was slouched in one of the plush chairs before Rufus's desk which were generally reserved for welcomed visitors and not his subordinates. Reno, however, had never sat anywhere else when the Turks were in the room, though his coworkers always lined themselves along the wall like civilized servants. He had his elbow propped on the chair's arm and his temple resting on his clenched fist. The cock of his head gave him a deceiving coyness that was erased at once by the rather jaded, unaffected, and utterly disinterested expression on his smooth face.

It irritated Rufus that his _one_ Turk who did not meet the standard in etiquette, gentility, and presence was somehow his best in so many ways—so many that firing him was an outright impossibility, though it in no way precluded the occasional desire to have him murdered.

"Sit up straight in that chair, will you?" Rufus asked, schooling his features to show nothing, to reflect Reno's expression. "You look like an absolute wreck."

Reno smirked a little but made no move to straighten from draping his body in the chair. Head propped up, the other hand rapping a restless rhythm on the chair's arm, long legs splayed, he was the picture of careless indifference. But there was a _danger_ there, too. A cat's cruel curiosity crossed with the reflex violence of a dog trained to kill. Those blue eyes, still half-lidded and sleepy, just watched Rufus as he started to nervously fidget. He would never admit to fearing any of his Turks—and, indeed, he _didn't_. Well, none of them except for Reno, and his fear wasn't of the conventional sort anyway. Turks were excellent at ferreting out secrets, and Rufus had no desire to see his own unearthed.

Especially since it dealt solely with the man who even now watched him with glittering blue eyes as if to say, 'I'll find out. You can't hide _anything_ from me.'

It had started with such an innocuous statement. Rude had been driving, Reno had been avidly watching out of the passenger-side window for any sign of threats. For all of his lazy insolence, Rufus never could fault his attention to detail. They'd passed a couple of rather questionably employed women, and Reno had lowly whistled and said, "Fuck, one of them is a guy."

Rude had said nothing, as was his habit.

"Ten gil, I'd still fuck her," Reno commented, grinning at his bald partner, who'd merely rolled his eyes. "She pulls it off, yo."

"You'd sleep with anything that holds still long enough," Rufus had retorted, finding himself vaguely disturbed by his Turk's admission. He gave little to no thought about their sexual orientations or even the fact that they had lives outside of work—he only cared that they came when he called them and responded to his orders. _Good dogs_.

Reno had craned his head around to give Rufus one of his many indecipherable looks, his blue eyes dancing, and he'd said, "A hole is a hole, yo. You're horny and it don't run—fuck it!"

Rufus had rolled his eyes and silently activated the partitioning glass, but he'd still heard Reno's delighted sniggers and Rude's low, almost inaudible chuckles.

But it had gotten him to thinking. At first he'd been wholesomely appalled by Reno's easy, almost off-handed admission that he would sleep with a man if it seemed worth it, though his statement had indicated that he would, by no means, be anything other than the dominant one. The more Rufus had thought about it the more his brain had taken up the position of his enemy, supplying him with curious scenarios, just little wonderings that gradually grew into questioning his _own_ absent interest in women and focusing more and more on his employee. He noticed things about Reno that he'd never _dreamed_ he would notice, and the more affected he became, the more uncomfortable he became until it was nearly impossible to conceal…

"Seriously, yo, you keep staring at my crotch like I got an ax-murderer hiding in my pants and he's gonna pop out and tuck you," Reno said, yawning, not even having the good grace to cover his mouth. Rufus was momentarily stunned that so many of his sudden and unwelcome fantasies revolved around this ill-mannered, ill-tempered, and sloppy man. "You wanna check, yo? Swear to god it's just a cock, but you're fucking jumpy and it's getting on my nerves, so pull it back a bit."

Half of the time Rufus had no idea what Reno was talking about, having to dig through his slang and double-entendres and generally horrid sentence structure. He knew the Turk was capable of speaking like a civilized human being, he just didn't want to. ShinRa had educated him but Reno didn't care for that, either—death, blood, flying, drinking, and sex were the only things he needed to get by and he made no bones about it.

"Reno, there are many things in this world which fascinate even a man of my position," Rufus said, haughtily aware of his superiority and trying to use it to rediscover that huge gap between them. He _couldn't_ want to let this creature touch him! It was simply beyond the pale. "That disease-ridden joystick in your pants is not one of them, however. Please do not flatter yourself."

"I don't need to," Reno snorted, laughing. "You know better than to think I'm dumb, boss. Keep your eye off my prize, yo—you know I don't do queers."

Rufus took a steadying breath and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, sighing, "Reno, a prize is generally something special that is given in reward for good behavior or for winning at some particularly difficult task. It is then placed in a safe area and admired out of reach of other hands. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm certain that such a description doesn't match what is currently in your pants. It isn't special, requires no work to have it, and is shared with anyone who asks—it isn't a _prize_, Reno, it's a public service."

"Feelin' left out, boss?" Reno asked, his grin wolfish and cruel.

Rufus knew for a fact that Reno was trying to get a rise out of him, it was a game the Turk played when the conversation went somewhere he didn't want it to be. As a manipulative tool it was exceptional, but Rufus knew his ways too well after all of these years. He simply sighed a little and told him, "I don't have time for your idiot performances. If you want your ego stroked, go find Elena. I have paperwork to finish."

Reno's face fell into something dangerous and angry, faintly shocking Rufus. He'd never seen such a look on the man's face before, but he recognized it instantly and cautioned himself to be more careful where his Turks were concerned. They might wear clothing, eat food, and speak like normal people, but they were killers to the bone, wolves in sheep's clothing. They saw the world at an angle to everyone else, an angle where one life snuffed out was an acceptable price to pay for the continued comfort of their own.

"One of these days, Rufus, it's gonna come back on you," Reno told him, blue eyes bright with heat. "Choke chains only work so well for so long, yo. _Dogs will hunt_."

Rufus flinched a little, recalling his father saying that same thing standing in a room with his many Turks, Reno among them. They'd bristled silently at his words but he hadn't noticed, no, not that fat and remarkably _stupid_ man. He'd assumed their loyalty and assumed the air of ownership, but every last set of shoulders had stiffened, and Rufus had known that if any threat came his father's way, he'd guaranteed its delivery with his arrogant, outrageous words.

"Well," Rufus lightly said, unwilling to let Reno upset him, knowing the Turk could read fear and that he would react to it like any predator. The Turks might not appreciate being compared to vicious dogs, but they behaved in a very similar manner, and Rufus had learned well. "I suppose there's always the crop. Get out, Reno. I finished briefing you fifteen minutes ago—_shoo_."

Reno's eyes narrowed but he laughed, a harsh and cold sound that still managed to be somehow compelling. Without another word, he flung himself out of the chair and slouched to the door, shoulders hunched over and hands shoved deep into his pockets.

Rufus watched him go, bothered and oddly exhilarated, wishing like everything that all of these recent, appalling thoughts would just vanish from his mind and give him a little peace.

He glanced back at the chair where Reno always lay sprawled out and had a sudden, unwelcome longing to kneel there before it between those splayed legs, to have those hard and relentless hands grip his hair, just for _once_ to be out of control, to surrender the burden to someone else.

The thought was as startling as it was horrifying. He could no more relinquish control to someone like Reno than he could offer world-domination to Sephiroth—it would bring cataclysmic chaos, undo everything that he'd worked so hard for. Reno was an excellent Turk but he was also a careless and selfish bastard. If Rufus so much as _breathed_ that he'd developed an odd sort of fascination with him, Reno would be just as likely to tear his throat out as to go along with it.

No, such a thing was better kept in the realm of possibilities, in the land of fantasy where no one got hurt, no one was the wiser. Rufus would continue to see a flurry of faceless nobodies, and Reno would continue to be his pest of a bodyguard.

Surely it could be no other way?

* * *

A/N: "Dog will hunt" is from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, it's also in a Primus song, but they use a clip from the movie so it's the same thing. I liked it, I thought it was clever in the movie so I ganked it—credit where credit is due! Hope you all liked this, it's been winging around in my head for a few days, feeding me dialogue and generally making me get up in the middle of the night to write shit down. There's more to come (I _think_) so let me know if it's off to a good start.


	2. Chapter 2

He found himself giving more and more little missions to Reno and Rude, sometimes to Reno alone. His most irate Turk assumed he was being subtly antagonized and responded with his usual cycle of smart-mouthed, barely-tolerable insubordination which Rufus would normally have responded to with a cold and clipped order to pack his shit and leave. But he depended too much on Reno to put such an order into words, and the man knew it—within certain boundaries, he could and _did_ get away with murder. It was best left alone.

Rufus gave him these missions under the pretense of him being the most reliable, which was a joke to both of them. His monstrous pride—the only thing he could rightly still call his own after the cataclysm of Meteor-Fall—would not allow him to admit that he assigned them simply to have Reno come slump in that godless, sin-inducing chair and stare sullenly at him, his handsome face in a permanent scowl, his restless body always moving.

It gave him a perverse, almost _physical_ pleasure to irritate him, though he knew from long experience that Reno's temper was nothing to trifle with. Still, how delightful to find some way to affect him, to crack that bored expression on his face and see some real reaction. When it all came down to the bare bones, Rufus was the boss and Reno was the dog—he obeyed, however grudgingly.

He even instituted a rotating personal guard, careful to put Reno near the end to alleviate suspicion. That he even _worried_ about suspicion bothered him, that he found something worthy of guilt in his own actions made him feel furtive and ridiculous—there was absolutely _nothing_ wrong with what he wanted, nothing shameful. It was his _right_, after all. He paid them, by god—they were his to do with as he pleased.

When Reno's turn rolled around Rufus tried not to be nervous. He felt like an idiot teenager again, all sweaty-palms and awkward hormones. He arranged to have a date that night, perversely wanting Reno to betray some sign of interest, hate—god, _anything_ but that impenetrable sullenness!

From the second Reno assumed duty it was a silent, one-sided _war_.

He was thirty minutes late and when Rufus opened the door to let him in he was leaning negligently against the doorjamb, half-asleep. It was a misleading façade. Reno's lazy, wiry body could move with the speed of a striking snake. Rufus had seen more than one dangerous interloper deceived by his Turk's nonchalance, and they'd paid for it with their lives.

"I'm going to prorate your pay," Rufus threatened, ignoring the sinking sensation in his stomach accompanied by startling bursts of warmth.

"You may as well pay us in dimebags, yo," Reno shortly told him, shoving his way into the apartment, the brief, impersonal brush of his body oddly frightening. "The pay couldn't get any worse."

"Keep it up and you won't have a job to complain about," Rufus snapped, slamming and locking the door.

Reno had stopped to lounge against the wall in his usual slumped, slouching manner, muttering, "Whine, whine, whine."

"You need to watch what you say, Reno," Rufus tightly said, straightening his jacket and gingerly touching his perfect hair. "You're hardly what I'd classify as _untouchable_."

Reno smirked and lit a cigarette with deft fingers, cooing in a nasty-nice voice, "I'd say I'm pretty untouchable for _you_, boss."

"I wouldn't count on it," Rufus purred, moving regally past him to don his long coat. "Now, you have made me embarrassingly late for an evening with a woman who is nothing like the disgusting filth I'm sure _you're_ used to. Let's go."

"I'm _sure_," Reno mocked, and heeled like a good dog when Rufus headed out.

His evening driver was a dependable man on salary to attend his after-hours needs—i.e.: he worked nights for Rufus ShinRa, carting him to and from events and publicity meetings, and anywhere else he needed to be while his Turks were largely off duty. He did _not_, however, allow anyone else to sit up front with him. Considering that he was roughly the size of Rude without even a hint of his charming sense of humor, Rufus never pushed this matter, though he was on the verge this evening as he made his way down to the waiting car. He wasn't sure he could deal with Reno in any sort of civilized way, and the rather puzzling Turk seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

"You had best behave tonight, Reno, I'm in no mood for your nonsense," Rufus told him, aggravated that the small brush in the hallway had so tilted him. Reno was sitting right next to him, spreading out in that annoying way of his, taking up _far_ more room than he really needed to. The musky cigarette-booze smell of him should've sent Rufus fumbling for the window release, but the fact that it was rather pleasant shocked him into immobility.

Christ, he was turning into a teenager, all right—a teenaged _girl_.

"Damn it all to hell, anyway," he cursed, and cranked the window down just to be able to complain, "You stink like a bar room floor, Reno."

"I ain't been home yet," the man said, taking advantage of the lowered window to light a cigarette.

Rufus glared at him but could find no convincing reason to get into a verbal spar. He was feeling off-kilter and out of his element. Trying his best not to sound nosy or, worse, _jealous_, he asked, "Oh? Out earning some extra lunch money?"

Reno snorted, staring out of the window with bright, alert eyes.

"I don't sell it, boss," he said, and then gave Rufus a piercing look, adding, "But if the pay gets much worse, I might start."

"You'd starve," Rufus murmured, feeling superior again.

"You _wish_," Reno told him, and laughed that harsh, cruel laugh again.

Rufus huffed a little, irritated by him. "Reno, you are my employee. Of _course_, I don't want you starving in the gutter…that would be very inconvenient for me."

"Would it, now?" Reno murmured, amused, his forehead leaning against the window. "I think you might enjoy it, yo."

"Keep your idiot opinions to yourself," Rufus reminded him, uncomfortable with Reno as he'd never been before. While the man clearly wasn't one-hundred-percent sure of what Rufus was hiding, he'd upped his usual entendre-based comments by an unusual amount, and Rufus was no fool.

Unfortunately, neither was _Reno_.

The Turk knew he was hiding something, and he'd very cleverly figured out that it had only to do with himself, not with any of Rufus's other Turks. From there, it was hardly a stretch of the imagination—Reno was only good for so many things.

"What's gotten into you, Turk?" Rufus asked, brushing his pant leg off when Reno's leg jostled against his own, as if sexual deviancy was something that could be transferred by touch. "You've been acting very strange, and I could swear you've been coming onto me at times." That's it, turn the tables, shift the guilt. "Reno, you know better than anyone that I prefer the gentler gender."

Reno snorted again. Rufus saw his eyes roll in the window's reflection.

"The gentler gender," he mimicked, mocking. "Don't be so goddamned sensitive, you twat. You cracked, I made it wider—it's what I do."

"Not to your boss," Rufus reminded. "And for your information I did not _crack_, thank you. Whatever it is that you think you're seeing, you're wrong. Now, be still. I want to compose myself before we get to Monica's house."

"Monica," Reno said against the window, grinning like a fiend. "Monica, Monica, Monica…"

Rufus rolled his eyes. Just his luck, a drunk Turk. No amount of threats or punishments could force Reno to stay sober.

"Monica Anne Whitney," he breathed in a sing-song voice, and Rufus froze next to him. "Monica, Monica—"

"Shut up," Rufus snapped, not sure how Reno knew it was to Miss Whitney's place they were headed. He was, however, a Turk and had various means at his disposal to find out such things. There was no connection, nothing to get upset about…Rufus tried to calm himself. Surely, it was a ridiculous notion to even _entertain_ the thought that Monica might have given in to Reno's questionable charms. Despite himself, he asked, "Did I introduce you?"

Reno nodded, and laughed again, tracing circle-faces on the fogged-up window. Rufus wouldn't classify them as smiley-faces. Their mouths were bowed down into unhappy, upside-down U's, and a few had stark dots in their foreheads that could've been parodies of Tseng, or bullet-holes, one.

"At the Grand Opening party, yo," Reno volunteered. "She's quite a lady…"

His wicked, ugly snigger did little to allay Rufus's fears. Still, looking at the man sprawled next to him, Rufus could not imagine that a woman of Monica's quality would find _anything_ appealing in this drunk, sloppy, careless, wreck of a man…not when she had someone like Rufus, after all. Surely breeding and culture counted for _something_? Surely that made him a catch? Someone to whom shoddy, dangerous Reno couldn't even _dream_ of being compared?

When they arrived at Miss Whitney's, Rufus found himself doubly nervous. He slid over farther, forcing Reno to give up some room, which he did with ill-grace. Rufus wasn't about to allow Monica to squeeze between them—he'd never caught Reno being inappropriate and he wasn't about to have an opportunity to _now_.

"_Rufus_!" Monica breathed, wriggling into the car in a waft of expensive perfume, her tastefully slinky dress clinging to every substantial curve. She twined around him like a vine, ignoring Reno…much to Rufus's relief. For his part, Reno just kept up his steady stare out of the window, knee jiggling with restless energy.

"It's been _ages_ since we've gone to dinner," Monica sighed, fitting to him as tightly as possible.

Rufus felt the press of her soft breast against his arm, the brush of her silky thigh against his. He absently wondered why he'd never slept with her. Perhaps there had just never been time? There was always work to be done, always something else that seemed more important. He knew his elusiveness only added to his reputation as a hard man to catch and made women desperate to pierce his arrogant disregard.

'_Well, tonight it changes_,' Rufus thought, and briefly wondered if sex was really something that could be scheduled and planned, executed methodically like any other meeting. Surely, he should feel passion? Excitement? God, even a _twitch_ of what stirred him during lonely midnight hours when his imagination ran away with his common sense and left him panting with the force of his lust…

Thinking of those heated, half-asleep fantasies gave him a jolt and he absently let his hand rest on Monica's slender leg, not even noticing when she pressed closer, purring possessively.

Unfortunately, he was more sensitive to the press of Reno's long, sinewy thigh against his, warm and taut.

Rufus was almost embarrassingly grateful when they arrived at the restaurant. He couldn't get out of the car fast enough and didn't miss Reno's amused smirk. With a sudden panic he realized that his secret might no longer be safe. In fact, Rufus was certain that his intuitive, cunning Turk had managed to piece it together. He did, after all, have animal instinct on his side—Rufus would not have been surprised if the man could _scent_ the fear and lust on him. He was an uncanny creature…Rufus paid him well to remain so.

Disturbed, he took Monica's arm, doing his best to ignore the dark, dangerous, and skulking presence at his back.

The date had been a bad idea. His patience was worn thin after a long week and this was in no way a relaxing venture. Reno was as restful as Meteor-fall and Monica was a clinging, cloying annoyance.

They were shown immediately to his private booth and seated. Reno took up his slumped, bored position at the booth entrance, idly scanning the other diners and the wait staff hurrying to and fro.

Rufus made small talk with Monica without even being aware of it, his feverish and rebelling mind returning time and again to that benign office chair, to that bored announcement, _"I can show it to you if you want."_ Would he have? If Rufus had had the balls to call him on his insolent offer, would Reno have _really_ dropped his pants right there in his office?

His eyes kept flicking to his careless bodyguard, taking in the unkempt hair, the wrinkled suit. He'd come straight to work from some woman's bed—thirty minutes late because fucking was more important than protecting his boss. _Bad dog_.

"Rufus? Are you alright, darling?"

Monica's voice brought him back from his thoughts, her concerned glance at Reno's tight back making Rufus realize he'd been staring.

"You look furious," she added.

"I really need fresh employees," Rufus told her, heaving a superior sigh and regaining his equilibrium. "I have a _problem child_ I could do without."

Monica looked studiously bewildered, her expression one of practiced, little-girl cuteness.

Reno snorted some vague back-talk but didn't turn around. Despite his instructions to the contrary, he lit a cigarette and smoked in sullen, watchful silence.

They ate their meal and Rufus made an effort to pay attention to Monica and ignore that silent presence at the door. He'd have had better luck ignoring a rabid, rampaging wolf, Reno simply drew attention regardless, most of it negative.

"Excuse me, darling," Monica purred, caressing his cheek in a possessive way that vaguely offended him. Rufus ShinRa did not _belong_ to anyone—others belonged to _him_.

He gave her a cool smile and watched her slip out of the booth. She moved gracefully past Reno without as much as a glance.

The second she was gone Rufus found her seat filled by his moody bodyguard, who put his cigarette out in Monica's unfinished dessert and swallowed down her glass of wine.

Rufus watched him with wary, hooded eyes, willing to allow his outrageous behavior. Before Reno had become some kind of embarrassing focus for his uncomfortable, unrequited lust, he had always been a cleverly amusing creature whose irreverence never failed to entertain.

"I told you to behave," Rufus reminded.

Reno shrugged a little, eyes flicking to the entrance when someone walked past.

His sly blue eyes cut to Rufus's, a taunting and satisfied smile on his face. There was just enough of a malicious, gleeful aura about him that Rufus became at once annoyed and leery. He was not, however, prepared for what Reno so easily told him.

"You know I fucked her, right?"


	3. Chapter 3!

Surely, he had not heard correctly.

Rufus stoically refused to allow Reno's easy claim to bother him. It was too simple to get upset, to believe him at once and accept what he said as the truth. But this was a Turk and—more to the point—this was _Reno_. He would tell such an outrageous lie just to see how Rufus would react.

He summoned up a cool smile of his own and said with all of the superior haughtiness he could muster, "Reno, a woman of Miss Whitney's social caliber wouldn't let you touch her if she were drowning and you were her only hope of rescue. I appreciate your interest—she's a remarkably stunning woman—but that borders on slander."

The red-head's brows rose in mock surprise and he laughed, "_Slander_? You're a real hoot, boss! Nah, she goes like a pro, yo. Got yourself a real ball-buster there…but _you_ should know, right?"

"Oh, be still," Rufus snapped, irritated. In the orderly confines of his world women like Monica would consider sleeping with people like Reno as a cardinal sin, a sullying that no soap could wash away. He was being absolutely ridiculous in trying to convince Rufus that he'd managed to slip through her guard. Barring a date-rape drug, it simply wasn't possible. "You're sulking like a child. Maybe if you cleaned up a little and at least _attempted_ to behave like a human being you could do better than prostitutes and scumbags."

Reno eyes danced with malicious mirth and his thin mouth curved up into a vicious smirk.

"Okay, boss," he conceded, and that somehow angered Rufus more than his blatant lies. "I ain't ever put a hand on your high-class piece of ass…"

Rufus breathed a sigh of relief, glad to have won.

"…and she didn't beg me to cum inside her, and she don't have a four-leaf clover tattooed so high up on the inside of her right thigh that you gotta spread her wide just to see it," Reno lazily informed him. "And she don't go off like a ton of explosives when she cums, either…so, you're right, yo. She's a perfect, untouchable lady…"

Rufus scowled at him but Reno only slouched back to his place at the door, perfectly silent. Moments later, Monica returned to the rather discomfited Rufus.

He found himself scrutinizing her, taking in her flawless, tawny skin, her perfectly straight and pale blond hair, her doll-like, wide blue eyes. She gazed back at him with the guileless vacancy of a domestic food animal—easily swayed, easily pleased, and, most importantly, easily forgotten.

Had she? The thought was unsettling and strangely hard to ignore. Had Reno _truly_ spread her out on some empty desk in the ShinRa building like some kind of banquet? Had he really run his hands along her supple limbs? Touched her with tongue and teeth?

Disturbed and strangely aroused, Rufus paid the dining bill and ordered the car brought around.

"Where to now, darling?" Monica asked, and made a soft moue of distaste when Reno handed her into the car. She wound up in the middle this time, and Rufus gave his body guard a sharp stare of rebuke, warning him from any line-crossing misbehavior.

"Home," Rufus told her, relieved when Reno slumped into the seat and resumed his restless watching, ignoring the both of them.

Monica was practically in Rufus's lap, and her keen awareness of Reno's presence at her side made the man both aghast and suspicious. She'd never treated Rude with such active distaste, never gone to such lengths to prevent Tseng from accidentally brushing against her.

_Surely_ he was wrong?! God help him, he _had_ to be wrong! People like Rufus simply did _not_ consort with such obviously classless trash! Reno was just making him paranoid, and was probably enjoying every minute of his discomfort.

Reno glanced around almost idly, but the sharp quality of his gaze belied his seemingly random look. His blue eyes fastened onto Rufus's again and he smirked, flicking a look at Monica's turned head, apparently only amused by the woman whose actions had swung from absolutely ignoring him, to distaste, to something that bordered on hostility.

By God, he was going to figure this nonsense out.

Reno was the first one out of the car when they arrived back at Rufus's place. He took his sweet time about it, too, unfolding his long legs and stretching lithely a few times before absently offering Monica a hand out.

She glared at him for a long, troubled moment before pulling herself out of the car and marching towards the door, chin lifted in a sullen sulk.

Rufus would have scowled at Reno, but that would have given away his irritation and he didn't want to give the man the pleasure of knowing he was angry. He settled for a bored glance instead, slipping out of the car to catch Monica by the wrist and hold her back. The only person allowed to walk in front of Rufus ShinRa was his Turks, and only when they were guarding him. Though beautiful, Monica had little value to Rufus, and certainly not enough to put her anywhere but at his side or else behind him.

"Are you upset, precious?" he asked, pretending that he hadn't caught that tense moment, that he didn't know why Monica was currently carrying a soft flush on her cheeks. Again, the idea that Reno had touched her was so outlandish that he was thoughtfully wondering if maybe his Turk had tried to slip his hand under her skirt in the car or something equally as disturbing. Monica was too much of a lady to make a scene about something like that, though she wouldn't hesitate to make her displeasure known in this same subtle way.

"I'm fine!" she sighed, her irritation vanishing, her sweet and innocent face firmly back in place. She coiled against his side, clinging to his arm, and purred, "Let's go upstairs, it's cold out here."

They headed for the penthouse, Reno ambling after them as if he hadn't a care in the world. And maybe he didn't. After all, it wasn't as if he had a company to keep afloat, or subordinates to keep in line, or the public to please. All he had to do was fly that helicopter when he was told to and follow his orders. Even an utter idiot could do that, and probably with less resentful resistance than Reno.

The insufferable man lit a cigarette when they got into the elevator, ignoring Rufus's glare, lazily draping his lean body against the wall opposite the rigidly affronted couple. Monica waved her hand in front of her face, her kittenish nose wrinkling. She coughed twice, delicately, but the doors opened onto the penthouse before Rufus was forced to respond to her soft complaints.

"Enjoy your ride, Reno?" Rufus asked. He always took pleasure in making his red-headed Turk take the elevator, knowing how close Reno had come to being killed by one and how leery he was of them now.

"Not as much as you're gonna enjoy _yours_, yo," Reno told him, smirking in Monica's direction. Luckily, the woman had already moved away from the smoke to kick off her expensive pumps and was busily rooting in her tiny bag for something, ignoring them both.

"Will you _please_ act like you have even a modicum of decency?" Rufus hissed.

Reno's brows lifted, pushing his goggles up farther on his head.

"What the fuck does _that_ mean, boss?" he asked, and his low tone was vicious, _dangerous_. "I'm just a stupid goddamned _dog_, yo—you can't be using all them fancy words on _me_."

"Don't insult my intelligence," Rufus snapped.

Reno's glare never lessened in intensity. He cocked his head, locks of red hair falling over his face, and purred, "_Likewise_."

With Reno, Rufus always had to pick his battles.

This wasn't one of them.

He turned instead to Monica, catching her under the arm and gently pulling her to her feet to urge her back into his suite. Reno would stay in the foyer, though Rufus knew from experience that he would probably wind up splayed out on the couch watching pay-per-view porn at his expense.

He didn't say anything to her, just kissed her, turning his irritation to passion. He didn't have a single thought that she might resist him—he knew he was desirable, he knew she was attracted to him, and he knew he was a catch. Monica would no more turn him down than she would let Reno put his dirty hands on her sweet flesh. There were rules in the world, and they all lived by them.

"Finally!" she cried, clutching at his lapels. She dimpled up at him in a coy smile and said with something that tried for reserved shyness, "Do you know how long I've been waiting for you, Rufus?"

He kissed her again, not answering with words, his fingers moving to the delicate hook and eye clasps that held her dress against her skin. He was oddly _bothered_, his mind returning again and again to Reno's absent, cruel lies at the restaurant. Had that lazy, arrogant man done this same thing? Had he pushed Monica's skirt up out of the way to touch her? Had he even bothered to _undress_ her, or had he simply spread her out and fucked her?

Rufus groaned against her mouth and Monica eagerly pulled at his clothing, undressing him with experienced, deft hands. He was torn between disgust, curiosity, and utter horror, the thought that Reno might've slept with her both disturbing and horrifyingly arousing. When Monica got his pants off of him, she made a soft little purring sound and palmed him, pleased to find him already hard and ready. Rufus was appalled to realize that it had less to do with her stunning, naked body and more to do with this _fixation_ of his that Reno's hands might have already burned a trail his own would follow.

He went through foreplay in a kind of haze, running on autopilot, his arch-nemesis imagination taking him back to the plush chair in his office, that lazy body sprawled in it. It was a shame, but he would simply have to have that thing burned to erase all traces of it…and the chair would have to go, too.

Monica responded with seemly eagerness, not too much, just enough to show she was enjoying herself while still maintaining her delicate manners. Had she been so reserved with Reno? Rufus thought, perhaps, not—there would be no reason to maintain decorum with such an obviously decadent creature. No, she would have reacted like a similar animal, all thoughts of caution thrown to the wind, her soft little cries released as loud snarls of pleasure, her body writhing wildly instead of in this controlled, pleasantly presented way.

As he touched her, all he could think was, had Reno done this? Had those long-fingered and precise hands cupped her heavy breasts? Pinched her turgid little nipples? Had he been gentle or rough? Had he treated her like a precious gift or used her like toilet paper? He could only imagine how Reno had taken her, roughly with no regard to her pleasure, an animal rutting. Few passions stirred his red-haired Turk. He couldn't picture Reno losing himself in the moment, no—he would have been methodical, mechanical, working solely for his own release, never once letting down that rock-solid guard of his, feeling nothing for the writhing flesh beneath his, not even appreciation that it existed to encompass his own…

"Oh my god," Rufus breathed, shaking his head to dislodge those insidious, disturbing thoughts. Far from being a mood-killer, he found himself so heavily aroused that he couldn't wait any longer. He moved off of Monica's taut body and dug in his nightstand for a condom. Despite his general inattention to the fair sex, Rufus had brought his share home to his big bed, had worked out several hours worth of stress in willing bodies. He kept such things handy, and always found a need for them.

"Oh," Monica pouted, seeing him open one. She gave him innocent, little-girl eyes and sweetly said, "I wanted you to cum inside me."

'_She didn't beg me to cum inside her…'_

Holy Christ, this wasn't happening. Even with all of his fevered imaginings, he'd never considered the possibility that Reno had been _serious_.

"Sorry, kitten," Rufus told her, covering his shock with smooth coolness. "I don't play that game."

He let her roll the condom onto his strutted body and pushed her back on the bed. As he spread her long legs to go down on her, he had a vivid flash of Reno telling him, '_And she don't_ _have a four-leaf clover tattooed so high up on the inside of her right thigh that you gotta spread her wide just to see it…'_

Despite himself, he spread her wider and paled.

"Rufus? What is it, darling?" Monica asked. Seeing the fixation of his gaze, she giggled and said, "I got it when I was a teenager, silly. I wish now that I hadn't, it's hardly proper."

"Well," Rufus said, trying to control himself. Far from upsetting him, the sight of the clover set him on fire with lust. Christ, he really _had_ managed to fuck this pure-bred, high-class, vacant little bitch. And she'd probably enjoyed every second of it in a brutal way that she would never _dare_ risk showing to a man of her own class. For the first time in his life, Rufus ShinRa had a clear concept of 'slumming.' "We all do rebellious things as kids. No harm done."

He buried his mouth against her warm flesh, shuddering, his wicked imagination stirring him to imagine Reno's tongue in this same place, doing these same things. He found himself unconsciously imitating the man in his mind, eating at her like she was some pagan feast, holding her with hard hands when she writhed and eventually lost her façade of a good little girl to grunt and moan like any two-gil whore. When he plunged inside her, all the way to his balls, it wasn't Monica he saw behind his closed lids, it was Reno sitting in that gods-cursed fucking _chair_, uttering that obscene and irresistible suggestion. Only this time when he offered, Rufus took him up on it.

He'd never cum so hard in his life.

* * *

**A/N: I have posted up to chapter seven on my livejournal, which is linked on my profile page, so if you want more updates to this story, go there and check it out as I'm not updating here until the site fixes itself.**

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

He showed Monica to the door in the wee hours of the morning, his libido utterly spent. She left with the satisfied air of one who has accomplished great deeds…if she only knew what had _really_ gone on in Rufus's mind while he was pummeling her so mercilessly. Even he himself was a little dismayed by it, and that led him straight into irritation with his distracting subordinate.

He returned to the living room to find Reno splayed out on the couch just as he'd suspected, a cigarette burning in one hand, his jacket tossed over one of the chairs and his shirt mostly undone. He didn't even glance up at Rufus when he came into the sizeable room.

"Did you?" Rufus asked.

"Nah," Reno said, tipping his head back against the back of the couch and sighing out a cloud of smoke. With that uncanny, almost preternaturally intuitive way he had of knowing Rufus's thoughts, he answered, "Crazy bitch like that, you never know what they're up to—I came in her ass instead, yo."

Rufus flinched, appalled. He would no more dream of doing such a thing than he would consider arriving at work completely nude. It simply wasn't done.

"A hole is a hole, yo."

"It would be a disservice to call you an animal," he said.

Reno smirked and said, "Thanks, boss."

"I meant to the animals, idiot!" Rufus snapped.

Reno grinned, flipping through the channels to arrive at his usual fare.

"And kindly stop ordering pornography while you're here," Rufus ordered. "I do _not_ condone such immoral and outrageous filth." Even to him the words sounded high-handed and snobbish, but he refused to take them back.

"Whatever you say, boss," Reno agreed, and hit the 'send' button. Seconds later, lewd images filled the screen, an orgy of decadent and vile behavior that Rufus found both disgusting and unnervingly compelling.

"Don't you even _care_?" Rufus asked, utterly frustrated.

"Do _you_?"

Rufus flushed and said, "Reno, a man in my position can't _afford_ to care."

Reno gave him a hard, amused, and somehow condescending look, asking, "Like I _can_?"

Rufus considered him for a long moment, this man lounging on his couch more like some kind of lithe, predatory animal than a human being.

"No," he said. "I _don't_ think you can…_Care_, that is. I believe you're as capable of forming emotional attachments as a sociopath is."

Reno gave him a pleased, wolfish grin. It was disturbing, sensual in its unthinking sexuality, terrifying in its casual cruelty. Despite his vigorous exertions in his tousled bed, Rufus felt his body tighten against his will. It bothered him how easily he reacted to Reno, and it scared him that he couldn't fathom _why_.

The woman on-screen moaned her appreciation of what looked to Rufus like a violent gang-rape.

Reno's glittering eyes were fixed on the spectacle with avid fascination, though he betrayed no signs of arousal—his breathing was deep and even, no trace of embarrassment, as if he were watching some benign children's show instead of something crude and awful and debasing.

"You're impossible," Rufus decided. "If you're going to consume this filth, I'm going to bed."

"Sweet dreams, yo," Reno absently told him, the entirety of his attention focused on the sadistic parody of love making that writhed and moaned its way across the television screen.

Disgusted, Rufus went to his bedroom, slamming the door and stripping off his robe with angry hands. He crawled into his oversized bed, cold now and stinking of spent sex. It was irritating and vaguely repulsed him to the point that he finally got up, stripping his bed in the nude, making it up inexpertly with clean sheets.

Rufus's mind returned to his office again and again, agonizing over what might have been a missed opportunity, what might have been Reno's own cautious probing into his interest. Had he fucked it up? Had there been some kind of invitation there that Rufus had stupidly ignored? He couldn't be sure and now he would never know, but he promised himself that it the chance came again he would take it. The next time Reno popped off with some insolent, mocking offer, Rufus would call him on it and then they would see who was embarrassed. Yes they would!

He was unfathomably _angry_, and lay awake for a long while, fuming, while the racket of cruel sex leaked through the door to eventually work itself into his feverish, disturbing dreams.

* * *

He woke from an aching, restless dream to feel someone touching his belly. For a moment, his dreams crossed over to his waking moments and his whole body responded to the illusion that it was Reno's cool hand against his feverish flesh. A moan and a rapid blink later, the person resolved itself into Monica, kneeling next to him on the bed and smiling that little-girl smile.

He sat up abruptly and snatched her hand away, utterly disconcerted, the shock killing his lust in an instant. Or maybe it was just the disappointment…

"I came back just in time," she cooed, giggling.

"What are you doing here?" Rufus snapped, irritated to have his sanctuary so assaulted. No one came into his home without his spoken permission, and Monica was no longer welcome.

"I forgot my purse," she said, sounding hurt, but even that had a calculated quality to it, a manipulative plaintiveness. "Reno let me in. I thought I would come kiss you goodnight."

How long had she been here? What _else_ had Reno let her do? Had she settled next to him on the couch and watched that offensive violation of human dignity? Worse, had she allowed him to touch her? Surely, when confronted with flesh the man would leave off that fantasy world and indulge his appetites…

Furious, Rufus snatched her down against the mattress and roughly manhandled her, appalled at himself in some rational corner of his mind. Gentlemen did not handle women as if they were _things_, but he found himself shoving his hand up her skirt and pushing her thin panties aside to force his fingers inside her. Monica purred and gasped, arching, wet. Was it the remains of their own delirious sessions, or the leavings of his insufferable Turk? Lube that made her slick or that _creature's_ leftover cum? He wouldn't put it past Reno to actually cum inside her this time, already prepared for Rufus's angry, instinctive reaction to inspect her. Manipulation was something his lazy Turk excelled at, and he'd somehow folded Rufus into one of his games.

"Get out," Rufus snapped at her, shoving her from his bed.

"Rufus!" she wailed, offended. "What on earth—"

"Take your things and leave," he coldly told her, angry and not willing to risk it. His imagination wouldn't leave it alone, even lacking hard proof of her tryst. "Get out _now_."

She pulled herself together with a haughty, insulted gasp and strode angrily from the room.

Rufus got up and put on his robe, following to make sure she left. He got to the living room as the front door slammed.

Reno chuckled from his place in front of the television and lowly murmured, "Trouble in paradise, boss?"

Rufus glared at him, searching the couch for some sign of abuse, for some indication that it had been put to ill-use.

Reno slid those heavy-lidded, deceptively sleepy eyes in his direction and gave him a cruel smirk, saying, "Careful, yo—paranoia is a dangerous thing."

"I can hardly consider her safe in the presence of a monster," Rufus snapped, unwilling to admit that Monica might not only welcome Reno's attention, but actually _beg_ for it in much the same way as that actress had, willfully offering her body for defilement, _wanting_ to be used like a whore. It angered him because it touched too closely to the workings of his own dangerous dreams, and it tied him into a hard knot of jealousy.

Reno just sat in that same position, no indication that he'd even moved to answer the door, no proof of any disarray in his wrinkled, half-undone clothing.

"Get some sleep, yo," he lazily said, having moved on to yet another disgusting bit of pornography. "You're a fucking crabby cunt."

"I never thought I would have to institute this rule, Reno, but you will never _ever_ indulge in sexual intercourse with _any_ of my guests, do I make myself clear?" Rufus tightly asked.

Once again, Reno's languid blue eyes landed on him and his head cocked, his handsome face set into a thoughtful, intentionally innocent frown.

"With any of your _guests_, huh?" he echoed, and Rufus flushed, realizing that he'd pointedly not included himself in the restriction. "Don't crease me none, boss. I ain't gotta come to your place to get high-class pussy. Your girls slip me numbers all the time, yo—anytime I want it."

"You son of a bitch," Rufus said, absolutely floored that there was a whole subtext to his dates' interactions with his _bodyguard_. For Christ's sake, how _long_ had Reno been fucking his girlfriends when he _wasn't_? He didn't doubt now that Reno was telling the truth, and knowing it was true made him bitterly angry and ridiculously offended. "How _dare_ you?"

Reno chuckled a little and took another long drag off of his cigarette before murmuring, "How dare I, indeed, yo. Sometimes a good girl's just gotta lie down with _dogs_…"

"You truly are a reprehensible individual, Reno," Rufus snapped, aghast, angry but with no way to strike back. "I would be ashamed if I were you."

Reno gave this suggestion the same consideration he gave to anything—he ignored it and went back to watching the television, but he finally replied, "Flattery will get you nowhere, yo."

Rufus made a frustrated, furious sound but only stood there, impotent with rage, unable to so much as scratch the surface of his aggravating Turk. He couldn't hurt nonexistent feelings, he couldn't dock a mocked paycheck, he couldn't threaten with ignored punishments—he felt his power over Reno slip to an all-time low, and that pissed him off as much as anything he'd learned this evening.

"Cross my heart, yo, I won't fuck a single chick you bring in this house _while she's here_," Reno told him, murmuring it absently, his mind on the television. "That make you happy, boss? You gonna cool it down now and rack out? You're interrupting my movie, yo, I don't wanna deal with your shit right now."

"Reno, I pay you very well to _deal with my shit_," Rufus said, his teeth clenched. "And I am very nearly out of patience with you—"

"Touchy bitch," Reno called him, and turned up the volume. "I about got you figured out, yo…just almost there…"

Shaken, Rufus decided a well-timed retreat was in order. He bit back his lecture, bottled up his anger, and hurried away even knowing that his tuck-tailed and hasty withdrawal would only help his outrageously aggravating Turk reach his realization that much faster.

* * *

When he woke the next morning he felt like he had a hangover, and wished to God that it had just been booze bothering him. He hadn't slept well at all, and his whole body was sore from pummeling that vapid woman, Monica.

He showered and changed and murmured a greeting to his housekeeper when she bustled into his suite.

"Breakfast is ready, Mr. ShinRa, Sir," she told him, giving him a huge smile. She didn't so much as bat an eyelash when she started to clean up all of those spent condoms. She was a servant, she did what she was paid to do and was paid very well to do it.

Rufus left his rooms to go to the kitchen, spying Reno still sprawled on the couch. He looked as if he hadn't moved at all the entire night.

Curious, Rufus paused and retraced his steps to the living room, coming to stand with hands on hips before that lazily relaxing man. He expected him to be asleep, but those half-lidded blue eyes were still on the television—cartoons, this time.

"Did you sleep?" he asked, using his best condescending voice.

"Nope," Reno said, reluctantly standing and stretching, the bones of his long spine popping. Rufus backed up a step, slightly unnerved. It was easy to forget how tall Reno was, the way he always slouched. He was so slim he seemed smaller, but when he reminded Rufus of how big he actually was, the man always got a little nervous. Though by no means short, he was shorter than Reno, though more solidly built.

Those blue eyes landed on him and Reno smirked, asking, "You flippin' out or something', yo? You look scared."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rufus snapped, flushing. "I'm going to have breakfast, you're welcome to help yourself."

"Why, boss, I'm touched," Reno mocked, dropping his long arms to his sides and cracking his neck. "Letting the dogs eat from the table, now, yo?"

"You're insufferable!" Rufus huffed, and stalked off for the kitchen.

He heard Reno come slinking in behind him, moving like a rivulet of dark water.

"Do you ever sleep?" he found himself asking, though he'd never noticed circles beneath the man's vibrant blue eyes. Reno always appeared half-asleep, indolent, _lazy_. He looked like the only thing he truly lacked for was a damned ham-sandwich, thin as he was.

"I can sleep when I'm dead, yo," Reno told him, ignoring food for coffee.

"Reno, don't drink that!" Rufus ordered. "You've been up all night, you don't want to waste your time off too awake to rest!"

Reno arched a reddish-brown eyebrow at him and smirked, lifting the cup in a silent cheer, saying, "I got shit to do, yo…but thanks for caring."

"Imbecile," Rufus said, directing his attention to his newspaper. "Don't even think about calling in tomorrow. You have today off to recover from duty, so if you waste it doing god-alone knows what, don't come crying to me."

"Like I would," Reno snorted, and downed the coffee. "I told you, yo. I don't sleep. Fucking waste of time."

"Sleeping?" Rufus haughtily inquired, giving him an exasperated look.

"No, yo," Reno murmured, and smirked again. "Talking to _you_."

Rufus glared at him, wondering how he could look so delicious in two-day old, stale clothing. But he did. Oh _boy_, he did. Even all rumpled from a long, sleepless night, Rufus could have gladly eaten him bit by bit.

He shook the thought off, attributing it to morning horniness and a sleepless night. Without allowing himself to look back at that decadent display of finger-licking fantasy material, Rufus absently returned to his newspaper and said, "When Rude arrives to pick me up, Reno, go home."

There was no reply. As was his ornery wont, Reno was ignoring him.

Personally, Rufus couldn't have been more relieved.


	5. Chapter 5!

Two days later Reno came skulking into his office, hands in his pockets and a stubborn pout already fixed on his face. Despite Rufus's warning, he _had_ called in yesterday…the President was nearly one-hundred percent positive that Reno had done it just to irritate him, and it had worked like a charm.

The moment the man came in he moved to slump down in that chair, sighing. Rufus scowled at him. More specifically, he scowled at that fucking _chair_. He'd meant to have it removed but never seemed to get around to it. He found that any time he looked at the stupid thing he got lost in some kind of ridiculous, shameful nonsense that made him blush.

Reno leaned back in the chair in his usual way—legs lazily spread, his left elbow propped and his head tilted to rest on his clenched fist, his right hand thumping restlessly at the chair's arm. He yawned, clearly bored, not fearful of Rufus's ire in the least.

The shocking thing was that Rufus wasn't even expecting him.

He was immediately on edge.

"What can I help you with, Reno?" he mildly asked, punching the hold button on his phone and mockingly giving the man his undivided attention. "Or, rather—what can I do to get you out of my office in a timely manner?"

Reno yawned again and shifted a little in that chair, settling in.

"Well, this is a pleasant change," Rufus murmured, trying to cover his bewilderment with sarcasm. "I've never seen you speechless before, I find it rather pleasant."

Reno leaned forward toward the desk and languidly picked up the small stone paperweight that Rufus had bought in Junon. It was a small thing, more decorative than useful, but he found that the smooth little stone fit rather well in his hand and he always wound up rubbing it when he was irritated.

Rufus heaved a heavy, put-upon sigh and asked, "Is there something you wish to discuss, Reno? I haven't got all day."

Very deliberately, Reno spun that little stone between his fingers and held it up eye-level. With that same calculated concentration, he dropped it on the floor where it landed with a soft thump.

Utterly outraged that this insolent man dare enter his office and abuse his things, Rufus scowled at him and snapped, "Pick that up right this second, you arrogant ass."

Reno's hand went back to rest against the chair's arm, fingers picking up his restless rhythm. He made no move to do as he was told, just kept watching Rufus with bored, absent intensity.

Flushing, Rufus stood up and stalked around the desk. He went down on one knee to retrieve the small stone and realized at once that _he_ was the ass and he'd just walked headlong into a deceivingly simple trap.

And here he was kneeling before Reno's spread legs.

The comprehension of his situation made him freeze, keenly aware that he was being watched. His brain screamed a warning to simply stand and return to his seat, but for the love of heaven absolutely do _not_ look up. At all costs, _do not look up_!

Of course he did. How could he resist? Too many times this same scenario had played itself to various endings in his restless dreams. Look up and get a true image to overlay his fevered imaginings, look up and really _see_ for himself just how such a perspective would appear. It was too tempting to be denied, and his head snapped up before his brain could even finish its cautionary shriek.

Eye-level, smooth black cloth and the untucked ends of that white dress shirt. Eye-level, the open vee of those long legs. His gaze traveled up to find Reno watching him with indifferent interest. A cat observing a mouse which it intends to play with and devour.

Flushing, Rufus made to stand, but Reno slowly shook his head.

Overcome by some willful, appalling insanity, Rufus obeyed and didn't rise…Well, not to his _feet_, anyway.

Those glittering blue eyes watched him, faint deliberation in their depths, as if Rufus was some kind of sideshow whose promise of entertainment was not quite believed. He still had his temple propped up on his hand, his lithe body loose and relaxed.

"Go ahead," he murmured.

Rufus flushed again. Go ahead _what_? Go ahead and push that shirt up? Open those pants and hope that reality frightened this unwelcome lust from him? That it would scare away those restless and aching fantasies? Or, worse, merely feed them fodder to be used against him? Go ahead and bury his face in Reno's lap in slobbering, abject worship?

His eyes flicked to the door.

"Don't worry, yo, it's locked," Reno said, his voice mellow, neither moved nor excited. He just sat there, slumped in that chair as he'd been countless times before, as he'd been in numerous dreams. The man gave him a slow, lazy smirk and asked, "Whassa matter, boss? _Scared_?"

Once more, Rufus flushed, embarrassed and angered yet frighteningly aroused.

He shifted a little, moving towards that lounging body against his will. It took a concerted force of effort for him to _stop_, to hold still, though he didn't draw back.

Reno's cruel, cold eyes danced with sadistic pleasure and he lowly purred, "You haven't got the balls, you milk-fed little bitch."

Rufus scowled at him, off kilter and confused by his body's unwillingness to heed his commands.

Coaxingly, Reno patted the inside of one long, slender thigh and urged in a perfect imitation of Rufus's own cultured voice, "Come here, boy."

It was almost insulting enough to put him back on his feet, and his pride roared in outrage. A vein started throbbing in his temple, a fine sheen of sweat darkened his brow. His eyes fixed on that slender white hand—so deceptively long-fingered and almost delicate, such pure bred hands for a man born in filth and squalor. And what havoc had those hands wreaked? How many lives crushed out with those strong fingers? How many willing bodies plumbed and teased? How many tear-stained faces had they stroked, reveling in cruelty? How would they feel moving through his hair with grim intent, eager to pull and own and hurt?

His breath came out in a shallow, pained moan, his body painfully hard behind the cloaking confines of his suit. The small sound of the man laughing brought his eyes back up to Reno's and he glared, locked into a battle of wills.

It wasn't one he could ever hope to win. Reno never wavered, never twitched, he just gazed steadily back at Rufus with that implacable smirk on his face. He didn't even seem particularly concerned if Rufus would give in or not, he just watched him, amused.

"Damn you," Rufus tightly whispered, looking away, ashamed.

"Not for this, yo," came the jaded reply. "I know what you been hidin' from me, Rufus…"

Hot, horrified tears burned his eyes but they didn't fall. They _never_ fell. He moved forward as if pulled by invisible strings, falling to both knees between those spread legs like Reno was some kind of unfeeling god awaiting worship. And it _bordered_ on worship, this humiliating acquiescence. His hands rose of their own volition, sliding beneath those sinewy thighs to grip tight. With the utter abandon of a thirsting man finding water, he buried his face in the soft heat so enticingly spread before him.

A soft sob shook him, the intensity too much after so much fretful longing. He pressed his open lips to that warm, slick cloth, taking deep, dragging breaths, his eyes squeezed shut and his body shuddering. It was simply too much, this dream made flesh. His mind screamed that this couldn't be happening, that it simply wasn't possible. He wasn't kneeling in his own office with his face buried in his subordinate's crotch, greedily pressing his mouth to that covered flesh, breathing him in like expensive perfume. The faint scent of his skin through his suit was enthralling, musky and salty and mouth-watering. His fingers clenched hard on the taut muscle of Reno's thighs and he rubbed his face against him like a cat.

Reno's steady, even breathing never changed tempo, his fingers never ceased that erratic rhythm. He didn't even have the good grace to get hard, he just sat slumped in that unholy chair and let Rufus press against him.

"Look at you," he finally said, and when he spoke it wasn't with his usual slangy, impossible-to-understand, under-plate drawl. It was sharp and viciously cunning, calculated to wound. "Snuffling at me like some kind of goddamned _dog_. You like that, Rufus? You catch that scent? That's your secretary, yo. I bent her over her desk and fucked her stupid before I came in here. Fucking cunt squealed like a slaughterhouse pig, but when she came, she _came_. Soaked me down to my fucking knees. So go ahead, take a deep breath, eat that up like a good dog—'cause that's the smell of a fuck _you'll_ never get."

Rufus was too far gone in a haze of shocked rapture to care about what he said, and the cunning part of his own mind knew that Reno was just trying to shock him, to upset him, to make him bewildered with anger. How clever of him to spend his lust with such a trap in mind, to guarantee that no matter what Rufus did he wouldn't get hard from it. Clever, but Rufus knew it for the ploy it was. It was another game, that was all. Reno would taunt him, would laugh at him, would say that Rufus didn't do it for him, and all because he'd busted his balls in the secretary before coming into the office and putting this careful plan into motion.

He pressed his face harder into that tainted flesh, relishing—yes, _relishing_—even the scent of a woman's leavings on that lean and lazy body. With his own perverse desire to elicit reaction, Rufus pushed that shirt up with his nose and pressed his lips to Reno's bare, hairless belly.

The muscles fluttered once in reflex reaction before pulling tight, nothing more. He lapped at his skin with long sweeps of his tongue, tasting some kind of cheap soap, salt, and sex. There was no mistaking that musky taste, and he shuddered, as appalled as he was aroused by the idea that he was licking up the remains of a frenzied rutting. That delicate white skin was stretched tight over rangy muscle, not enough fat to even give his teeth purchase, no—Reno was all lean mass and long limbs.

"You want to, Rufus, go ahead," Reno offered, and a chuckle shook his lean body. And still he lounged in the same position, lazy and unmoved. "Lick me clean with that blue blood tongue of yours, you high bred piece of ass. Get a taste for honest lust and a hot pussy mixed with cum, yo."

Rufus was finished being taunted, being teased with possibilities. He'd sworn to himself that he would call Reno out on his ridiculous offers, turn them on him, use them to embarrass _him_ instead of the other way around.

Yet when he lifted his hands to undo those black pants, Reno languidly gave him a shove that tumbled him backwards, away from the object of his intent.

He didn't even move from the chair, just absently moved one muddy, booted foot to settle firmly on Rufus's crotch, pressing lightly with obvious warning.

"Always such a stuck up cunt," he mused, idly pressing harder, still drumming his fingers, still looking on the dangerous edge of sleep.

Rufus lay frozen, sprawled in an undignified pile against the front of his desk. He was breathing shortly, shallowly, as outraged as he was aroused. He stared in shocked disbelief at that muddy boot so firmly wedged between his legs, leaving a print that would stain his white pants, scorching him through to his very soul. It was frightening to be pinned in such a sensitive area by such a perilous person. It scared him badly, but his throbbing body ached beneath the heavy press of that boot and his hips trembled. He clenched his teeth, wishing he could just get up and pretend none of this had ever happened, but he'd been lost the moment that stupid stone had hit the floor and things could never be the same.

"You and your pop, both of you so high and mighty," Reno said, falling gradually back into his usual incomprehensible manner of speaking. "Always wanting us to do your dirty deeds and keep your lily white hands clean, always patting our heads and calling us good dogs and feeling _generous_ when you toss us the scraps from your goddamned table."

That boot pressed harder, rocking a little, digging painfully into his balls and pressing just beneath his weeping head in a way that made Rufus squirm, gasping, flushing and ashamed.

"Yet here you lie," Reno whispered, and his smile was smug, malicious, full of intense cruelty. "Ready to cream yourself if I so much as _look_ at that pathetic thing you so proudly claim is your cock. So, come on, Rufus, show me what a good dog you are, yo."

"You fucking _bastard_," Rufus hissed, teeth clenched. He writhed beneath the firm, painful press of that slowly rocking boot, feeling it work up, feeling an orgasm threaten that no vapid and vain girlfriend had ever been able to evoke.

The curse only caused Reno to press harder, hurting him for an agonizing second that in no way diluted his lust.

"Hump me like a dog, Rufus," Reno told him, his voice soft and bored, his cocked head still resting on his fist, his steady gaze fixed on Rufus's face. "Take a little of that shit you dole out, you self-important fuck."

Rufus's pride demanded that he have Reno killed immediately, but his own deeper, more recent resolution to play this game in a way that the man would least expect prevented him from getting up.

Instead, he gripped that ankle with both hands, feeling the stiff leather of that combat boot beneath the silky cloth of his pant leg. He gripped tight and rolled his hips up, gasping a groan and eyes rolling. It felt fucking _incredible_, this debasing and humiliating punishment designed to demean. It was intended to break him, to fuck with him, to knock him off balance and put him beneath this animalistic creature he called his Turk. Instead it transported him, and he pulled that heavy boot harder against him, working himself against the sole of Reno's shoe, against hard rubber that had stepped in untold puddles of blood, piss, and puke, that had connected soundly with numerous skulls and unsuspecting faces, that brought him to and from Rufus's office, that held him steady while he pissed and gave him leverage while he indulged in a swift fuck in one of the janitor's closets.

Rufus found himself in the middle of a raging orgasm before he could even expect it, his hips bucking wildly beneath the steady force of Reno's relentless boot. Indeed, as he gasped his climax aloud, eyes rolling up in his head, the man pressed even harder as if to relieve his aching explosion. His body twitched, convulsing hard on the carpeted floor of his office. He held Reno to him with frantic, strong hands, arching up roughly against him until every last drop of cum had shot its way out of him to nest among his clothing and only the relentless, breathtaking echoes of an orgasm still wracked his shuddering body.

He'd never felt so dirty, used, or blissfully pleased in his entire life.

Reno shifted ever so slightly, moving back into his previous sprawled position, no flush on his high cheekbones, no sign of enjoyment on his handsome face. No doubt, endless hours of choreographed, graphic sex had inured him to arousal of the conventional sort. He seemed sleepy and mildly bored, ready to either fall asleep in that chair or go find something better to do. Those glittering blue eyes fell on him, half-lidded and lazy, so seductive with untold depths of violent promise.

"_Good dog_," he whispered.

Rufus glared at him and stood, glad that his body betrayed no signs of weakened knees or post-climax tremors. He straightened his suit with a fussy, snobbish moue of annoyance calculated to irritate Reno, picked up his dropped paperweight, and moved around to sit behind his desk.

"You're dismissed, Reno," he said, picking up his pen as if they'd just finished discussing the weather instead of some epic, subtle battle of wills.

Reno laughed, a tinge of actual humor in it this time. With a languid smile and a nonchalant, half-assed, and mocking salute at Rufus, he uncoiled from that malicious instigator of a chair and walked to the door in his usual lazy, slouchy manner.

It was a long time before Rufus stopped trembling, a long time before his pen stopped shaking enough to write legibly. He dropped it and shoved his hands into his hair, sitting in his soiled clothing, feeling tacky cum drying against his loose pants. He looked down and saw a perfect, muddy imprint of Reno's boot on his pants and shuddered, gasping, just the sight of it enough to make his spent and abused body twitch.

His wild gaze fell upon that seemingly innocent and innocuous chair. It sat there with the placid, static presence of an inanimate object, but Rufus was beginning to believe that the thing had a life of its own and an uncanny power to provoke Reno. Not sure if he should burn it or have it lovingly reupholstered, Rufus let his head drop to his desk and groaned, his brain filled with enough fantasy material to last him for the rest of his life.


	6. Chapter 6

For the first time in his memory, Rufus was running late.

It wasn't exactly his fault, he reasoned. His encounter with Reno yesterday had been so shocking and outlandish that it had tortured him the rest of the day clear into his sleep. Or lack thereof. He'd tossed and turned all night long, aware of Elena patiently playing solitaire in the foyer and wishing she weren't there at all.

He'd done everything he could think of, including drinking warm milk and jerking off countless times, but nothing calmed him. Hell, he'd even woken up once from his restless sleep with a raging hard-on, and his morning erection had been unusually insistent.

Damn that man, anyway!

Stuffing his paper into his briefcase and chugging his coffee, Rufus stalked to the elevators with Elena drooping at his side. _She_ had the good grace to look like a night without sleep actually _bothered_ her. When they reached the car, she gladly went her own way, happy to leave him with her relief.

He flopped into the car, Rude at the wheel, and stared unseeingly out of the window.

"Late, Sir."

"Yes, Rude, I know, thank you," he murmured. "I will do my best not to disappoint my employees with future fuck-ups of this kind."

"Reno, Sir."

Oh.

"He isn't at work?" Rufus asked, though the man had just told him.

Rude grunted an affirmative.

"Oh, for Christ's, sake, just go by his place and we'll bring him," Rufus sighed, irritated at his thoughtless, lazy Turk.

Rude altered their course to Reno's apartment and pulled up.

"Go get him—wait, never mind. _I'll_ go get him, maybe it will make him think twice about being late next time if he thinks his boss might show up," Rufus snapped. "What apartment is he?"

"211 B," Rude told him, both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead.

Rufus sighed and got out of the car, fussing with his suit as he strode down the cracked sidewalk to the shabby apartment.

He neared the door and slowed when he heard a shriek of feminine giggling from inside and Reno's low, laughing voice admonishing, "_Now_, you little shit! _Get dressed_! We're already late, yo."

More laughter. Rufus lolled to a stop at the door, aghast that he was eavesdropping but unable to prevent himself.

"Christa, I'm not fucking playing with you," Reno's voice said, faintly muffled by distance and the thin, ridiculously token excuse for a door. There was a thump and more laughing, soft, feminine giggles mixing with Reno's own chuckles. "I ain't got time to fuck with you, baby—"

Having heard enough, Rufus hit the doorbell and heard it chime with tired, rusty discord inside.

"The fuck? _Now_, Christa, go get dressed!"

Rufus heard the soft pad of Reno's feet, the patter of smaller feet running. There was another trill of delighted laughter followed by Reno's soft grunt before the man said, "Jesus Christ, no more pancakes for _you_, yo! You weigh a fucking _ton_!"

The door swung open.

Rufus saw too many things at once to properly make sense of them all.

Reno stood in the wide-open doorway partially dressed, as if he'd started to get ready and then been distracted by something else. It was pretty obvious what that 'something else' was—a thin woman was latched onto his back, still giggling.

No, not a _woman_. It was a girl, probably barely over the age of consent. A young girl with big violet eyes and long, blond hair, her slender white arms locked around Reno's neck and her small, bare legs around his hips as she rode his back. She was wearing an oversized tee shirt and clearly nothing else.

"Who's he?" she asked, panting, her cheeks flushed. She pressed a kiss to Reno's cheek, clearly an affectionate gesture of habit.

"Boss," Reno said, either acknowledgment or answer. "Am I late or somethin'?"

"Good morning, Reno," Rufus coolly said, knowing full well that Reno _knew_ he was late as he'd just admonished this _Christa_ about it. "My my, even _I_ wouldn't have pegged you for a pedophile."

Reno gave a little shrug that jostled the girl and merely grinned.

The girl's lovely face split in a grin and she laughed, saying, "Oh, _you're _Rufus," clearly amused. She slid down off of Reno's back and leaned against him for a moment, eyeing Rufus, idly tugging on the ring through Reno's belly button.

Reno slipped his arm around her back with the absent intimacy of long acquaintance, his slim hand resting on the curve of her slender waist.

Finally, she gave his long ponytail a hard tug, saying, "I'll go get dressed."

"Gosh, _thanks_," Reno snorted, smirking at her and aiming a slap at her backside.

She slapped his side instead and tore away in a dead sprint before he could retaliate, giggling again.

It was then that Rufus realized Reno wasn't wearing his shirt, and that the man was simply _covered_ in tattoos. They started at mid-forearm on both arms, cavorting in a manic collision of color up and over his shoulders. They spilled down both of his lean sides from beneath his arms and down to his hips, disappearing into his pants to converge above his groin. Rufus could clearly see where they met in a vee above his loins, exposed by his unfastened, gaping pants, low enough that it was obvious Reno was either one extremely hairless individual or else kept himself studiously shaved. His wide, muscled chest was stark white, as was the ridged, washboard muscle of his lean belly, though his belly button sported a heavy silver hoop, as did both small, dark pink nipples.

Flushing, Rufus snapped his gaze back up to find Reno smirking at him, patiently waiting for him to satisfy his curiosity.

"You mind?" he lazily asked.

Rufus hissed, "Just go get dressed!"

"Come on in, boss," Reno offered, and turned away to amble inside.

His back was another map of twisting color, this one a picture that Rufus could actually make sense of. Up high on his shoulders were angels in mid flight, but what might have been beautiful turned frightening when Rufus noticed that the angels were being dragged down by the clawed, cruel hands of demonic creatures which cavorted near the base of Reno's spine. Heaven being toppled by Hell, the damned writhing in tortures beneath those captured heavenly hosts, their faces twisted in what might be pain or even pleasure. Somehow, the steady sway of that long ponytail only added to the illusion of reality, a column of flame rising up to sever the helpless body of an angel whose wings bowed beneath the weight of those demons dragging at its robes and feet.

Reno disappeared into the bedroom and slammed the door. A few seconds later that girl came bouncing out of the bathroom in oversized shorts laden with chains, heavy boots laced up her ankles, and a torn, belly-baring, and ripped white tee-shirt hanging from her bare, slender shoulders. She slapped a slouchy cap atop her light blond hair and poked her tongue out at Rufus before barging into Reno's bedroom, saying, "I'm leaving, you grouch."

She yelped and jerked back, laughingly trying to hold the door closed as Reno threw something at her. He wrenched it out of her grasp and palmed her face, shaking her gently and asking, "Grouch? Get your fat ass to work, yo."

The girl giggled deliriously and fended him off, saying, "I'm not fat, fucker!"

"Shut your shit and go," Reno ordered, emerging as she skittered down the hallway towards Rufus. On her way past she pressed two fingers to her lips and winked at Rufus, giggling when Reno snapped at her to not be such a slut, for Christ's sake.

Ah, the domestic bliss of the under-plate household. _Touching_.

"Is she even _legal_?" Rufus inquired, watching the saucy young woman wriggle her bottom at them both and bounce out the door. She was a fetching creature, and would no doubt be a stunning woman. Apparently, Reno liked blondes.

"Not for another year," Reno sighed, and his eyes were assessing when they landed on Rufus. He buttoned his cuffs and negligently buttoned his shirt up just a bit, enough to hide all traces of those amazingly discordant tattoos. With a sudden grim, somehow tired grin, he added, "She's a heartbreaker, yo."

"Don't be lewd," Rufus snapped, wondering if Reno could be anything _but_. "Get in the car, Rude is waiting."

As much as it disturbed him to notice, there was every sign that Reno shared his apartment with his young lover—makeup scattered on the end tables, purses and hats strewn near the door, several pairs of outlandish shoes flung beneath the coffee table, and magazines geared for young girls who liked tattoos, muscle cars, and delinquents stacked against the wall.

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Rufus headed back to the car, preferring to wait in the relatively civilized presence of his huge, silent Turk than spend another second in the squalor of that apartment Reno shared with a girl who looked like a high-schooler and talked like a streetwalker. But then, that was probably a combination that titillated his red-headed Turk, a whole world of dark deeds right there at his fingertips.

Disturbed and uncomfortably _jealous_, Rufus kept his mouth shut. A few moments later Reno slid into the front seat and they headed off to work.


	7. Chapter 7!

A/N: I'm just gonna start plunking chapters on as I write them, now. I was trying to work out a system so that people would want to rate or review a chapter as it came out, but I'm pretty sure that isn't working and I'm tired of trying to pimp for opinions, so I'm just gonna be a bitch and do what I want. Anyone who reads, thanks for doing so, and your support is appreciated, so please don't feel offended that I'm doing things this way…I'm just feeling a little not appreciated, so I'm just throwing this shit out there for my own viewing pleasure! Loves ya!

* * *

Reno's duty rolled around again, and Rufus gave him a scathing reminder to not be late. Much to his surprise, Reno arrived ahead of time.

But he wasn't alone.

When he answered the door a rather tall woman entered, Reno at her back. Her hair was the deep black that only chemicals could provide, and relieved with broad stripes of shocking purple. To compound this visual phenomenon, she'd pulled it up into high ponytails on either side of her head, all that heavy hair falling in wavy locks to her bare white shoulders.

"Wow, you're right, Reno, he's _pretty_!" she cooed, and Rufus barely took in the bizarre outfit she wore—some kind of black getup that seemed to borrow from both the medieval period and fetish gear. "What'd you say his name was again?"

"I beg your pardon!" Rufus sputtered, aghast and glaring at Reno. "You said I was _pretty_?!"

"You can call him Priss," Reno offered.

"That is _not_ my name—"

"Hi, Priss, I'm Charlie!" she laughed, her full lips glossed with purple.

"Reno, explain yourself immediately!" Rufus demanded, falling back away from both of them. Charlie had a piercing in every available orifice and some that weren't—like her cheek and eyebrow. _Ghastly_!

"He's a little high-strung, isn't he?" Charlie asked.

"I am _standing_ right _here_!" Rufus protested, their continued ignoring of him making him angry.

"Booze is behind the bar, baby," Reno said to Charlie, and she sashayed off with such a fluid, graceful walk that Rufus was momentarily stunned by her, his mouth dropping open and his eyes fastened on the sway of her round hips.

"Now, what're you on?" Reno asked, slamming the front door and locking it before lighting a cigarette.

"Reno," Rufus hissed, recovering. "You're supposed to be on duty! This isn't an opportunity for you to hold some kind of deviant house party!"

Reno's brows rose and he laughed, "With three people, yo? Some kind of _party_."

"Reno—"

"Quit your yap, yo, and just relax, will you?" Reno suggested, and when he looked at Rufus he had that same expression that the man had last encountered while he was lying sprawled on the floor of his office, exploding in an orgasm.

Disconcerted, Rufus shut up. So, Reno had brought one of his girlfriends over. Rufus supposed that his rule had somehow been interpreted to mean that if Reno couldn't touch _Rufus's_ girlfriends, he could bring his own along for tension-relieving purposes. _Honestly_.

Charlie called to them from the bar and they both went, Reno in that slouchy way of his, Rufus rather reluctantly. He hated to admit it, but she was an altogether beautiful woman, just so different from Rufus's usual fare that it took him some time to realize it. He sat sipping his drink while she chattered at Reno, at once playful and amazingly witty, showing a shrewd insight tempered with a love of the absurd. More than once she asked Reno if something was wrong, and commented that he seemed out of sorts, which made Rufus wonder what Reno was _really_ like. He'd only ever known the Turk to be this way, and was suddenly curious if Reno put a demeanor on along with the suit.

Charlie turned her curious attention to Rufus, and showed a true interest in what he said, asking questions that surprised him with their depth—she wasn't just idly asking to be nice, she'd listened to what he'd said and wanted clarification on some things. It was refreshing to speak to a woman who had more than marbles rattling around in her head, however strange those many piercings and her bizarre makeup might be.

Several bottles of his best whiskey later, Charlie heaved a huge sigh and complained, "Enough _talking_ already! Let's have some _fun_."

And with that she popped off her barstool and started to undo her clothes.

Stunned, Rufus glanced at Reno, who was watching her with absent interest.

Charlie unlaced her tall boots and kicked them off before unsnapping her stockings from hidden garters beneath her black vinyl shorts. She grinned at both of the men and teasingly said to Reno, "Don't look at me like I'm old news, yo! It ain't been _that_ long since we were tight!"

"Not old news, baby," Reno said, and smiled at her, tipping his glass in salute.

Charlie wriggled out of her clothing to stand naked next to both men, her white hide inked in patches at her hips, back, and shoulders, more piercings in her nipples and belly, running in a mock-corset down her slender back, small rings with a black velvet ribbon running through them to tie at the base of her spine. She had the lithe, supple build of a stripper, and Rufus found himself staring.

"Well," she said, stretching. "Where's the bed, yo?"

"I…w…" Rufus looked at her in helpless bewilderment, and then looked at Reno.

The man was a sphinx, nothing showing on his face at all. He got up off of his stool, put his cigarette out, and led the way, only pausing to say to Rufus, "Come on, you piece of shit—don't keep the lady waiting."

This made Charlie dissolve into laughter, and she clung to his arm, letting Reno drag her back to Rufus's bedroom.

Drawn by morbid curiosity and a drunken absence of inhibitions, Rufus followed them, staggering towards the couple who had paused for a kiss and a grope in the doorway. Charlie broke the kiss and laughed again, reaching out to grab Rufus. He fell against her, feeling her warm skin, feeling Reno brush against him so that his heart started pounding. Just the scent of him, just the _nearness_ of him, and Rufus was hard as a rock.

"In you go, yo," Reno said, and dumped the pair of them into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Rufus let Charlie kiss and nuzzle against him, hardly aware of her, his bleary eyes fixed on Reno as the man tugged off his jacket to toss it over a chair and finished the job of unbuttoning his shirt. Though he'd seen Reno shirtless just the day before, this partial undress was much more stimulating, a tease now that he knew what lay beneath.

The man sat down in that chair and unlaced those heavy combat boots, kicking them off, taking off his socks before slumping back in his seat and lighting another cigarette.

"Come on, Priss, don't be cold," Charlie cajoled him, and Rufus realized with a start that she'd somehow managed to get him mostly undressed. Her small, strong hand reached down to give him a squeeze and he moaned, his gaze returning helplessly to Reno, who hadn't moved except to shed his shirt and now sat there in just his unzipped pants, legs sprawled, eyes glittering.

"Don't mind him," Charlie breathed, leaning up to suck on the lobe of his ear. "Red likes to watch sometimes, he won't mind sloppy seconds."

"Sl…oppy seconds?" Rufus echoed, not having the faintest idea what she meant.

Charlie took his question in another vein and gave him a sad, soft smile, "Yeah, it's okay, yo—you can cum inside me. I can't have any babies now, the Doc fucked me up too bad. But that's okay, I guess. I get by."

Rufus could only stare down at her, and gasped in shock when she dropped to her knees. His girlfriends had committed similar unmentionable acts, but always beneath the cover of the sheets and were always daintily resistant at first as if to prove that they must be coaxed into such indelicacies. Charlie just dropped down and looked up at him with a big, beautiful smile and wrapped her purple-glazed lips around his hard cock, one hand stroking his balls and the other slipping up between his thighs to rub a knuckle just behind his heavy sac.

Rufus felt sure he was either going to faint or wake up from some kind of insane fantasy. There was no earthly way he was getting a blowjob in his own bedroom from a perfect stranger with the gorgeous face and body of a goddess while the taciturn, unfathomable object of his lust looked on, smoking a cigarette.

But _God_ she was good. She didn't balk or gag or weep pretty tears designed to enflame—she sucked like she wanted to taste his prostate and used yet another piercing with the kind of skill pornographers could only dream of. Rufus moaned in helpless arousal, shuddering and awash in it. The fact that Reno watched it all just made it that much better, and he lost himself in a fantasy of the man himself doing such things to him, or of doing similar things to Reno while he lounged in yet another complicit chair…

"Mmmm, yummy," Charlie teased, her stroking hand taking up where her mouth had left off. She kept pumping him with one hand, the other lifting to slip a finger in her mouth. She pulled it out with another impish grin and asked, "You like getting corked?"

Rufus just stared down at her, bewildered.

She sucked him back down and played his head with tongue and teeth and cunningly placed barbell. A scant second later that wet finger slid neatly up inside him to gently rub.

He was so shocked that he couldn't even think straight for a second and by the time he'd gathered himself enough to protest, he realized that it actually felt really _good_. He shivered and gasped a soft moan, startled to realize that he was already quite close. Charlie seemed to be sensitive to it, and paused her skilled sucking, just thrusting that finger into him, her other hand squeezing the base of his cock tightly.

"It's ok, yo," she assured him, giving him another gorgeous smile. Christ, she was fucking beautiful, and so much more vibrant and enjoyable that those pale, imitation women he was so used to. "Loads of guys like it, they're just a little shy about it."

Helpless to resist, he glanced back over at Reno.

The man hadn't moved. He was still slumped in the chair, appearing half-asleep. If he realized that Rufus was looking at him, he gave no indication of it. He just watched them, watched Charlie working that finger in and out of Rufus's body while her hand squeezed his swollen cock into submission.

"You coming, Red?" Charlie asked, letting go of Rufus and standing up. She didn't have a single hair on her pubis, and the smooth skin was as enticing as it was disturbing to Rufus, who'd only seen the delicately manicured lawns of his upscale girlfriends.

"You go ahead, yo," Reno told her, and shifted a little in his seat. It was hard to tell in the darkness and maybe it was his drunken eyes playing tricks on him, but Rufus thought he saw the black cloth of Reno's pants pulled taut. The idea of that enticing, utterly frustrating and sensual man being aroused from watching them made Rufus's own cock spasm, and Charlie gave it a playful slap before pinching him just below his head and pulling him to the bed by that strategic hold.

"You want sloppy seconds for reals, yo?" she questioned, clambering up on the bed with her ponytails bouncing, Rufus crawling after her in a kind of aroused, stunned haze.

"No seconds, baby," Reno told her, and Charlie cocked her head, laughing a little.

"What're you up to, Red?" she asked, and when she looked back at Rufus her gaze was assessing. She smiled at the oblivious man and looked back at Reno, saying, "It's all you, yo. You mind?"

"Help yourself," Reno offered.

Confused by the interaction, Rufus found himself atop Charlie's body. She spread her legs and pulled them up, baring herself and yet another piercing that made Rufus wince when he saw it.

"Yeah, looks awful but it feels good, yo," Charlie laughed. "Now, you pop it in, Priss—I had enough foreplay already, I just wanna get a ride. I don't go with guys much these days, so make it good."

Giving up even attempting to decipher that incomprehensible statement, Rufus let her guide his strutted sex to her hot and wet hole. He'd never entered a woman bare back in his entire life, and the tingling amazement of it left him breathless. Drunkenly swaying, he arched over her and moaned when she locked those slender legs around his hips. She popped her hips up, a forceful and determined demand to be fucked, and she was so outside of his realm of experience that Rufus was taken aback. She didn't writhe and whimper beneath him, intent on being a delicate lady—she bucked like a bronco, hissing urgent praise to him, slapping her body up forcefully to satisfy herself on his cock.

Holy _fuck_ it was amazing! Rufus grabbed onto her, clenched one pert little breast hard in his palm to hear her moan in happy approval. He actually _fucked_ her as he'd never done to a woman before in his life. Not even his frantic and fevered moments with Monica mere nights ago could come close to the unrepentant lust of this rutting. It felt natural and somehow _real_, just two people enjoying a mutual attraction with nothing else in mind but the moment.

The bed sank behind him and Rufus cursed a little, the movement causing him to half-slide from Charlie's tight, wet body. Confused, he tried to look back but she was suddenly latching onto his shoulders and kissing him. Against his lips, she moaned, "Hurry it up, Red."

Growing alarmed, Rufus tried to break the kiss, tried to ignore the pumping thrust of her hips that hammered all rational thought from his head. A hard, calloused hand pushed against his backside and he felt something sticky and hot press against him.

"Holy _Christ_!" he cried, lunging forward, but Charlie rode his movement like a lithe monkey, tightening her legs around his hips, keeping her mouth pressed to his and her arms tight around his neck—he couldn't get away, she kept him as still as possible and Rufus gasped in shock to feel what could only be Reno's cock sliding into his ass.

His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell still, gasping and shuddering. It didn't feel good; in fact, it fucking _hurt_, but just knowing it was Reno's hot cock inside him, filling him up, just knowing that it was Reno's hard, rough hands gripping his hips—he nearly came when the realization hit him. Even his most delicious fantasies had never touched on this possibility, had never envisioned him squirming on Reno's rigid cock while a gorgeous woman squirmed on his own.

"_Oh my God_!" he gasped, shuddering, the pain almost too much to bear, his shivers turning to hard shudders as goosebumps raced along his skin.

"Oh, you were right, Red," Charlie laughed, and she looked up at Reno from beneath Rufus. "You should see his face."

"I'll pass," Reno told her, and drew back to shove forward.

Rufus gasped and very nearly came. The tearing, searing pain of it couldn't hold a candle to what his brain was feeding him, to the climax-inducing knowledge that Reno was fucking him, using him, rocking those lean hips against him. Just the thought of it was enough to induce a hard cum, and he felt his cock spasm inside Charlie's wet body.

"Slow down!" she wailed, writhing beneath them. "You're gonna make him cum already!"

Reno leaned over Rufus's back to kiss her once before straightening. His long-fingered hands curled back onto Rufus's hips and he started to shove into him, ignoring Charlie's complaints, not even hearing Rufus's broken, sobbing moans of pleasure.

He thought of those tattoos dancing across Reno's belly while that fat cocked worked in and out of him. His mind—his enemy—was screaming at him in panicked lust that this was _Reno_ pummeling him so hard it jarred him, Reno's thick body pounding away inside him. It was an alchemy that would make any soothsayer jealous, this amazing melding of pain into pleasure. And all he could see in his feverish imagination was his own swaying, complaining body in that tight grip, being relentlessly fucked from behind.

That was all it took.

Rufus clenched his teeth and burst inside Charlie, only dimly aware of her own climax, his orgasm so intense and electric that he thought he might just pass out. He sobbed in helpless pleasure, squeezing that cock inside him, just knowing what it was and who it belonged to prolonging that amazing eruption.

Reno didn't make a single sound behind him, the only noise was the wet slap of his belly hitting Rufus's backside. When he came the only indication was a subtle tightening of his rangy muscles and a sudden, amazing flood of hot cum up inside Rufus.

Charlie lay panting beneath Rufus, letting her legs fall from his hips. She watched Reno, who immediately pulled out of Rufus and backed away.

"You're always right, Red," she breathed, grinning. "You said he'd be fun! He wasn't expecting _you_, yo! Good thing you didn't scare the shit out of him."

Rufus trembled, on hands and knees over her, his head hanging and his cock limp. He felt a little sick from the booze and tired to the bone, unable to properly process what had just gone on. Christ, had he really just had a _threesome_ with his Turk?

"Uh oh," he heard Charlie say. "He's going, yo…"

The last thing Rufus heard before he passed out was her soft voice gently chiding, "He sure ain't much a partier, Red…"


	8. Chapter 8

Rufus woke once in the night still fuzzy from the booze to see Charlie pinned next to him. Reno had locked her wrists together above her head somehow, and she was writhing like mad, gasping pleas and swearing at him. Reno was sitting up on his knees between the wide spread of her legs, one hand absently guiding her bucking hips, a cigarette dangling from his mouth while he fucked her so hard that her pretty breasts jarred with the motion. He murmured something to her, that cigarette bouncing between his lips and spilling ash onto her skin, and smoothed his hand along her taut belly before slapping it hard, leaving a pretty pink stain of irritated skin in the shape of his palm. With that same hand he languidly reached up and took the cigarette out of his mouth, the motion smooth and sensual and frightening in its utter carnality.

Rufus almost moaned aloud seeing it, aroused by the act itself and by the distant, bored, but amused expression on Reno's face. God, did _nothing_ reach him?

Charlie moaned, her fluttering eyes catching Rufus's, and she whispered, "Wake up, Priss, you're missing all the fun."

As much fun as it looked, Rufus slid back into drunken sleep to the tune of their rough lovemaking.

When he woke up once and for all his head was pounding fit to split his skull and his bed was empty. He went to use the bathroom and found himself violently reminded of what had happened last night while he was doing so. No, he hadn't dreamed it. From the ache in his gut and other tell-tale signs, Rufus knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd been fucked. The idea of it so shocked and horrified him that he went through his shower in a kind of daze, utterly at a loss. There was no way in _hell_ that he'd spent the night fucking a perfect stranger and letting that raunchy excuse for a Turk _mount_ him! It was just too much to be borne! If he hadn't had to really come up with some convoluted new washing positions to get the cum off of himself he would have _gladly_ just written it off as a particularly vivid and amazing fantasy.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do such a thing, and he would have to face his subordinate at _some_ point, so once he was done with the shower he just bundled up in his robe and searched his home. There was no sign of either of them, but he knew that even his laziest and least trustworthy dog wouldn't leave while on guard duty, so he had to be _somewhere_…

Reno was sitting on the floor of the balcony, one knee drawn up to his chest, the other slightly bent so that his long foot was flat on the ground. He had his arm draped over his lean belly and a cigarette in his other hand. He took a deep drag off of it and watched Rufus approach, his eyes narrowing to slits against the smoke that drifted from his nostrils. Rufus actually had a dizzying, worrying moment of irritation that man was wearing pants, and immediately gave himself a mental punch, aghast that he would think such things.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" he whispered, not even knowing the first rational way to start this conversation they would so obviously have to have.

"I need something, yo," Reno told him, and rested his forearm on his bent knee, flicking his ashes on the floor as if _daring_ Rufus to berate him.

"After last night you _seriously _think I _owe_ you something?" Rufus asked, almost ready to have a hysterical meltdown. He was hung over and hurting and he'd just spent the last twenty minutes scrubbing _cum_ off of himself! And now Reno was going to add insult to injury and actually _demand_ something of him?

"You think one lousy fuck is worth anything, yo?" Reno lazily asked, arching an amused eyebrow. "A few drinks and lay later and you're out, you dumb cunt. I'd have gotten more out of fucking a corpse."

Rufus flushed but said nothing. Reno had always called him such names, had always had a marked lack of respect for Rufus that bordered on barely tolerating him and only _deigning_ to follow his orders.

"You should be happy I even laid you open, yo," Reno told him, and smirked. "You know I don't do queers…"

"Well," Rufus said, icily offended. _Name-calling_ was not only inappropriate it was simply in horrible taste. "I suppose that would make _two of us_!"

"Who the fuck do you think you're pulling one over on, yo?" Reno laughed, his blue eyes crinkling. He tossed his smoke over the balcony and sighed, shaking his head. "Straight guys don't catch like a pro, boss—half a minute of my cock up your ass and you were racing for the finish line. Don't kid yourself, Rufus, you got what you wanted. And now I need to get what _I_ want, yo."

"Which is?" Rufus stiffly asked.

Reno blinked at him, the silence stretching taut. He stood and stretched his tall body in a lean line, sighing a little and shaking his red hair down his back.

"I'll tell you on Monday," he said, and pushed Rufus out of his way to go back inside.

* * *

Rufus actually fretted and stressed over what Reno could possibly want. He was certainly in it _now_, he knew—he'd slept with a subordinate, which gave Reno all kinds of leverage against him. It had been a mistake which now appalled him, but Rufus found his nighttime world simply stuffed full of gleeful, reveling replays of that awful night.

After lunch on Monday, Reno came slinking into the room to flop down in that terrible, perverse, and benignly gloating chair, making Rufus glare at it and make yet _another_ mental note to have the fucking thing put away in another room somewhere far, _far_ from him.

"I take it you're here to make your demands?" Rufus asked, trying to reign in his nerves, trying to ignore the tight knot his stomach had drawn itself into…and trying desperately to keep from getting an erection just looking at that deviant man who sprawled out as if he _hadn't_ fucked his boss.

"Let's don't get ahead of ourselves, yo," Reno drawled, and scratched at his brow where those stupid goggles rested. "I know something got to you, boss—you ain't ever had a glance for me for goddamned _years_, yo. You're a stupid fuck if you think I ain't gonna take advantage of your newfound _interest_."

Well, at least he was honest. That was a first.

"I am not, as you so delicately put it, a _stupid fuck_, Reno, so let's just get down to business—"

"You do me a favor and I'll throw another fuck your way," Reno told him, his blue eyes glittering and full of something Rufus didn't quite trust.

A hook well-baited, but a hook nonetheless.

"Do I _look_ like I need your pity sex?" Rufus coldly asked, using every ounce of his formidably icy persona to put his wayward Turk back where he belonged—_in his choke chain_.

Reno smirked, one eyebrow lifting, and asked, "So, you gonna go out and hook up some bear somewhere, yo? Gonna let some stranger ram you and, maybe, run to the media about it later? Don't even _think_ you ain't gonna want it, yo—once bitten and all…"

Rufus scowled at him. He was so carelessly elegant all spread out in that chair in his usual chin-on-fist position, his body loose and utterly languid, his handsome, narrow face suffused with that bored disinterest. If he'd looked any more edible, Rufus might've accidentally "dropped" his paperweight. As it was, he was inclined to consider Reno's offer, and ignored the voice in his head that shrieked warnings at him. Because for all of his aggravating way of presenting his claim, Reno was _right_—Rufus would only be content for so long with fantasies…

He steepled his hands beneath his chin and looked at Reno, trying to stay calm.

"What is this _favor_?" he asked.

"First off, we got a deal, yo?" Reno asked, and lit a cigarette even though he _knew_ he wasn't supposed to smoke in Rufus's office. "You say yes, I'll see you tonight."

"And if I say no?" Rufus inquired.

"Then I see you tomorrow," Reno told him, smirking around his cigarette. "_At work_."

Rufus blinked, trapped and knowing it but unable to escape and not really sure that he wanted to. Reno intrigued him, and few enough things in the world were actually interesting for Rufus. He was willing to feel it out. He could always have Reno killed later, if he proved to be troublesome, though that would be a shame...

"Then I say yes," he lowly said, expecting gloating from the other man.

Reno just leaned forward and dropped a piece of paper on his desk, a scrap with a phone number on it.

"What's this?" he asked.

"My favor, yo," Reno told him.

Rufus sighed heavily and dialed the number.

"You calling for Reno?" was the first thing he heard.

"Yes," he said.

"He owes," the man on the other end said.

Rufus felt his stomach sink. He'd expected anything from Reno but _this_.

"How much?" he asked, hiding his reaction. He was at a cross-roads here and he knew it. If he did this, he'd officially be _buying_ Reno's body like some kind of high-priced whore.

The man snapped off a figure that would, indeed, cause any one of the Turks considerable concern. Luckily, it was trifling to him and he promised to have the money delivered by the end of the business day before hanging up.

"Is _this_ what it's come to, Reno?" he asked, staring down at his hands on his desk. They were nice hands, the nails clean and buffed and well-tended, the skin smooth and soft, the fingers long and sensitive. Nice hands for a nice, good-looking man, one who didn't _need_ to purchase sex, one who shouldn't _have_ to buy his Turk's loyalty. "I thought you said you'd never sell it?"

"I said I _don't_ sell it," Reno corrected him. "Ain't nobody got the funds to afford _me_."

"Well," Rufus said, and couldn't stop the sick, sinking feeling in his stomach. He'd lusted after Reno in terrified silence, he'd dreamed about doing things with him that he'd never dare do with any lover, and he'd been overwhelmingly responsive to the man's advances, but he'd _never_ wanted to have to resort to outright _buying_ the man's body. It was wrong and ugly and sordid, but Rufus knew it was the only way to have him. "It will be paid immediately, Reno. May I ask how you incurred the debt?"

"Gambling," the man told him.

Rufus sighed and dropped his head into his hand.

"Just go," he whispered.

"See you later, yo," Reno said, and smashed his cigarette out on Rufus's paperweight before heading for the door.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Here is your warning! Bad words: pussy, cunt, faggot, queer (clearly not in alphabetical order) Bad deeds: smoking, drinking, and fisting (non-graphic, not even seen but mentioned) Bad news: more emotional bullshit because Rufus can't figure himself out and Reno is a prick**

**Please let me know if I missed anything.**

**PS--In case you missed the description, this is a dark fic, so if this kind of stuff gives you a case of the squicks, you might be happier elsewhere.**

* * *

Rufus thought about what he'd done.

He thought about it very hard and examined it from every angle and _still_ had no answer to the question, 'why?' Why had he agreed to such a thing? Why hadn't he just been able to say no and show Reno to the door? What was it about that man that made him so desperate for more when he'd hardly had glowing remarks about their first encounter?

At the heart of it—Reno intrigued him. Before the man's easy comment in his car, Rufus had never given two shakes about his Turks as people, and it amazed him that he'd never noticed how blatantly sexual and confident Reno was. He'd always taken him at face value: lazy, sloppy, not particularly loyal but reliable to a point, and rather prone to getting into trouble on his off time. Now that he'd loomed up on Rufus's radar, the man had a rather difficult time ignoring him, and it had oddly translated into a sexual interest that _still_ shocked him. He'd never lusted after anyone before, he'd never _had_ to—he snapped his fingers, his bed was filled, it was just life. He hadn't considered that he might be distractedly reserved with women because he didn't really _enjoy_ them, and the memory of his rather brief clash with his Turk had smashed that point straight into his high-bred backside. It made him a little dizzy to know that he was far more interested in men—in _this_ man—than he'd ever been in any ditzy woman of his acquaintance.

Yet he'd done the unthinkable. Reno had made it extremely clear that he only liked women, and that his interactions with Rufus would be on a purely business basis. If Rufus had told him no, Reno would've just melded back into the background like nothing had ever happened. Which brought Rufus back to his question of why he cared, why it mattered?

And the only answer he could find was that it mattered because it was _Reno_.

He wanted to know more about him, wanted to find out what circumstances had created this violent and almost _sociopathic_ individual. He was morbidly curious about the man's life and wanted to know more.

So when Reno showed up at his apartment that night—no guard duty, he was covered—Rufus asked him what it was like on the underside.

Reno just sucked on his cigarette and let his blue eyes wander lazily over Rufus's casual clothing before saying, "I'll show you, yo—but you gotta find something decent to wear, I ain't going nowhere with some high-profile prick looking to get dicked, yo."

Rufus had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but a quick skim of his wardrobe yielded a worn hoodie from his university days, and Reno said it would do.

They took a cab to one of Reno's haunts, Rufus nervously fidgeting next to him, helplessly wondering if there would be a repeat of the other night and how on earth he would handle it sober. He couldn't seem to stop looking at him, taking small and surreptitious glances at the relaxed and oblivious man.

They got out at some rotten hole in the wall whose falling down sign proclaimed it to be Spot Fourteen. Someone had graffitied a smiley face into the "O" and yet another person had painted a woman's nude body around it. It was more than just nominally disturbing, and Rufus had his first thought that this was _so_ not a good idea.

The bar was packed with a filthy press of humanity, but Reno elbowed them through to a few seats at the bar and promptly ordered two drinks, four shots, and keep them coming. He didn't spare Rufus so much as a glance, gave no indication that they even knew one another.

Rufus fondled his glass with nervous hands, wishing he'd taken off his rings—they twinkled in the light, obviously expensive and no doubt screaming for various low-life individuals to come mug him. Reno ignored him and put away the drinks like nobody's business. Rufus watched him from the corner of his eye, wondering where the man got such patrician bone structure when he was one hundred percent below-plate trash. Still, it was hard not to admire such elegance, and he started guiltily when Reno's sharp blue eyes suddenly landed on him.

The man smirked and told him, "Quit starin' at me, you goddamned queer."

Rufus blushed, offended, and tightly responded with, "Do _not_ speak to me with such disrespect, Reno! I _still_ sign your paychecks!"

"Yeah?" Reno laughed, and slammed one of his shots, chucking the small glass down in a jumble with the others. "Well, we keep up, yo, that paycheck is gonna get a lot fuckin' _fatter_."

"Jesus," Rufus breathed, looking away, trying to drown himself in booze. He didn't want to be reminded of their deal. He didn't want Reno on such terms, but he hadn't had any _choice_. It was pay to play or nothing, and Rufus was once again horrified that he'd been so weak…and that he _would_ be so weak in the future.

A woman came shoving up next to Reno then and reached across him to snag Rufus's sleeve. She was drug-abuse skinny, her skin sallow, her teeth bad. She had heavily painted her face to hide the fact that she was lined and used up, though Rufus doubted she was any older than thirty. He recoiled from her horrific make-up, from her frizzy, bleached hair, from her skimpy clothes and the loose, flaccid flesh it revealed.

"Hey, mister, you want to have some fun?" she asked, swaying against Reno, so drunk she could hardly keep her feet on those high heels. She looked up at him and crooned a little, like she'd just found a plateful of brownies and no one was claiming them.

"Fuck off, you skanky skunk," Reno told her, and nudged her away from Rufus. "Ain't nobody here wants any of that worn out old pussy."

The woman laughed, the noise harsh and brittle with too many cigarettes and a life lived too hard. She leaned against Reno, who ignored her, and purred at both of them, "Age equals experience, boys."

"Experience?" Reno mocked, one brow lifted, though he didn't seem to mind the woman hanging on his shoulder. He laughed at her and asked, "Is _that_ what you call having a truck-stop for a cunt? You could probably get a football team in there, you tossed whore. Get spent."

"I had a football team," the woman said, as if this was something to be proud of. Her almost _servile_ persistence in trying to get Reno's attention vaguely irritated Rufus, and he tried valiantly not to be jealous. Imagine, handsome and powerful Rufus ShinRa jealous of a used up old barfly—_ghastly_.

"Oh yeah?" Reno asked, and sounded dangerously interested. "You got a pretty loose pussy, huh, sweetheart? _How_ loose?"

She cackled and filched a cigarette from his pack. As if he was even _slightly_ in danger of becoming a gentleman, Reno lit it for her, his keen blue eyes on her face.

Rufus started to get uncomfortable, knowing what that interest meant. Reno saw a game to be played, a mark to be had, an opportunity for mischief. Whatever happened tonight, the last thing Rufus wanted was this…this _creature_ coming home with them. Charlie was one thing, but _this_ was something else altogether!

"Pretty loose, pretty boy," the woman crowed, and her laughter turned into a deep, hacking cough that made Rufus wince.

"Make you a bet, momma," Reno said, and pulled his wallet out. "I bet you two hundred gil that you can't take a fist."

"Oh _Christ_!" Rufus whispered, and downed his drink, his pulse pounding. He was vaguely sick to his stomach and nauseatingly aware that Reno meant what he said. He had absolutely _no_ intentions of this happening. He didn't want to see it, he didn't want to know about it, and he wanted to pretend he'd never even _heard_ of it! This was beyond indecent and bordered on downright deviant, something he wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

"Two hundred gil for a girly little hand like yours?" the woman asked, and laughed again. "You got a deal, baby."

"Not _mine_," Reno told her. "You're a champ, you try him. I bet you can't, though. Guy's got monster fists, yo. One look and you'll wish you were being fucked by a bulldozer instead. I betcha."

The woman, too drunk for her own good and clearly not fully in charge of her senses, slurred, "You got yourself a deal, you mouthy little fucker."

"Cash on the barrel head, momma," Reno told her, and waited while she fumbled in her purse, managing to scrape out two hundred gil.

"Reno," Rufus murmured, tugging on his sleeve. "Don't do this. Let's go, okay? This isn't what I had in mind—"

"Shut your shit, bitch," Reno absently murmured, not taking his attention from the woman's hands, watching like a hawk in case she decided to make off with the money. "You wanna see how the under-plate live, you deal, yo."

Rufus gestured frantically for another drink and gulped it greedily while Reno whipped out his slender cell and dialed.

"Me, yo. Got a bet goin' so where you at?" he asked.

"_Home_." Rufus could hear that deep, low voice from where he sat and realized which man Reno knew who had monster fists.

"Got a washed-out gully wants a fist, yo," Reno told him. "Bet her it's a no-go. Need you, pal."

"_…_"

"Two hundred," Reno said, apparently just as telepathic with Rude as he was with Rufus. "You make it, yo—_all_ of it, I just wanna see this cunt shut her yap, she needs a lesson."

"_…where…_"

"Spot Fourteen, down from Nina's, you know it," Reno told him. "The place where we ran a train with the boys on that cheeky biker bitch. 'Member?"

"_…be there in ten…_"

"See ya," Reno said, satisfied. He flipped his phone shut and looked back at Rufus while that horrid excuse for a woman rooted for something in her oversized bag. "Now, what're you on, you whiney twat?"

"Reno, I don't want to see something like that," Rufus lowly muttered, yanking his hood lower over his face. Christ, this had been a bad idea! "I'm leaving!"

"Got a bet on, yo," Reno told him, a smirk curving his fine lips up as he barred Rufus's escape. He lit a cigarette for himself and leaned back, hooking his elbow over the back of his chair so that he sat just as sprawled and inviting as he did in Rufus's office. It was hideously distracting, and Rufus struggled not to be side-tracked. "We can't go _now_."

"Aren't you here with me because if _this very same thing_?! I'll cover it," Rufus offered. "I'll pay it three times over, let's just _go_!"

Reno's big, sultry blue eyes flared with dull anger and his smirk fell into a sneer. In carefully drawled words he said, "It's a matter of principle now, yo. Bitch takes a fist or Rude gets the gil—the _end_. We ain't fucking _moving_ from here 'til the shit is _done_, you understand, yo? I ain't gonna walk outta here with that wasted cunt laughing that she got the best of _me_."

"Oh, sweet mercy," Rufus breathed, and polished off his drink, gesturing for another. When Rude finally showed up, Rufus kept his face lowered and his hood pulled close around him, hoping like hell that the big man wouldn't recognize him.

He needn't have worried.

Rude came straight to the bar and stood at Reno's other side, and the man promptly crowed, "You're in it now, sweetheart!"

"Where?" Rude inquired.

The woman was in a state of shocked silence, and Rufus didn't dare lift his head to see if her face reflected her panic.

"_Table show_!" Reno shouted, and cheers went up all over the bar.

"Oh my god…" Rufus stumbled away from the bar and flung himself through the doors out onto the cold street, gasping for breath.

There was a roar of laughter from inside that made him grit his teeth and hunch his shoulders, willing himself not to mentally picture what was going on. He hardly heard the ruckus in the bar, intent on his own misery. He didn't want this kind of thing to be a hobby for his Turks! He didn't _want_ Reno to be the dangerous, dirty deviant that he was! Christ, why had he even come out here? This whole thing was _insane_! It had been since the moment Reno had so casually dropped that paperweight on the floor between his spread knees…

"Now _here's _a sight," came that lazy, drawling voice. He heard Reno's boots crunch on broken glass and slap into a puddle of puke or piss, one. Whatever his immoralities, Reno was a vigilant watch-dog—Rufus hadn't been outside alone for a full five minutes yet.

"Is it—" he caught his breath on a gag and swallowed hard, eyes watering to even _think_ of such a thing. "Is it over?"

"Bout to be. Fuckin' delicate cunt," Reno called him, and stood staring at him with those impassionate, unmoved blue eyes. He took a thoughtful drag off of his cigarette, his head cocked, that lazy body poised for action. "Look at you, yo. Zero survival skills, Rufus—stupid little shit. You seen enough? You got all your nice little assumptions confirmed, yo?"

"What?" Rufus asked, bewildered. He'd only wanted to see what Reno's life was like, to see what had shaped the man he found so intriguing. It had been honest curiosity, not an opportunity to feel superior…

"Don't play with me, yo," Reno growled, and tapped ashes onto the toe of Rufus's expensive running shoe. "You wanted to see disgusting humanity at its worst…_you got it_…"

Rufus just stared at him, confounded. His only intention had been to at least _attempt_ to understand where his Turk was coming from. He didn't want it to be a paying relationship with himself as the john and Reno as the whore. He wasn't comfortable with that on any level and was ashamed that such a transaction had even occurred…If Reno had just _asked_ him for the money, Rufus would've gladly paid it off for him…

"Reno, should you continue to speak to me in such a disrespectful and intolerable manner, I will not hesitate to have Tseng write you up," Rufus tightly told him, angry that Reno acted as if _he_ were the one doing the favor! As if _he_ were the one slumming! "_I_ have kept my side of our little deal, Reno—_you_ have been insulting, aggravating, and bullying and I've had all of it that I'm going to take."

Reno's brows rose again and he smirked at Rufus, clearly amused by his attempt to be haughty and stern.

"Well," he said, and spat his cigarette out to land on the ground. "At least you got some _balls_, fucker."

Rufus glared at him, whispering, "And if I were you, Reno, I wouldn't be so quick to call someone a _faggot_ when _I'm_ the one doing the plowing—do you understand? That term goes both directions, _dog_, and it doesn't give two shits if you're pitching or catching."

Reno laughed, but said nothing, amused by having been called _dog_ by his stiffly formal boss.

Another loud roar of the crowd came from inside and a few moments later Rude came waltzing out.

Rufus got a glimpse of stark black before he dropped his head, hiding beneath his hood as the man neared them. He saw Rude reach out, saw Reno lift his slender hand.

"Partners," the huge man lowly said, an apparent explanation for sharing his winnings.

A handful of gil slapped wetly into Reno's palm.

"Gross," Reno sniggered, and laughingly said, "Go wash your paw, yo—stinks like rank pussy."

Rufus seriously thought he was going to throw up, especially when Reno just pocketed the gil and idly wiped his wet palm down his thigh.

Rude just started to laugh, the sound low and purring, but he made no move to go clean himself off. Rufus stared stupidly at his large, scuffed boots and wished him away.

"Ain't no thing, yo," Reno said in answer to some silent question. He really was a master at reading body language, or else he _could_ read minds. "Lightweight, he can't take the heat."

Rude laughed again and uttered one word, "Delicate."

"You got it, yo," Reno agreed, and gave Rufus a shove before clamping a hand down on his nape and shaking him. "Come on, Priss, let's get you home, yo."

Rufus was inclined to be sulky, and tried to ignore Reno on the ride home. They dropped Rude off on the way and headed back towards civilization.

The man was angry and hurt that his curiosity had been twisted to such ends. Reno had just assumed that Rufus only wanted to see the worst and most sordid things, but he'd really only wanted to get to know him a little better. He'd tried to find a way to relate to his Turk on a personal level, and Reno had slapped him in the face with flagrant delinquency. It was too horrid to be borne!

"Took all the bitch right outta ya, yo," Reno remarked, slinking along behind Rufus as he made his way to the elevators.

They rode up in silence, Rufus still too angry and oddly shamed to speak rationally. It was easy to let his anger make him forget that this man had slipped up behind him and fucked him hard, had rode him straight into a blindingly amazing orgasm. It seemed unreal; the stuff of dreams, _not_ something this sarcastic and debasing man was even capable of.

"Cat got your tongue?" Reno inquired, and leaned on the door once he locked it behind them.

Rufus turned his back on him and went to shower off the night's _festivities_, if they could be called such a thing. He'd had more fun at a funeral, and wished he'd never gone at all. Not only had he been exposed to something that he would, otherwise, be blissfully ignorant of, he hadn't come to understand a thing about Reno.

Reno caught him by the arm before he even got a good step in.

"Get your hands off me!" Rufus hissed.

"Not what you're payin' me for, boss," was his quick reply.

"Well, I wasn't paying you for your attitude or your insults, either!" Rufus snapped, rounding on him. "But it certainly didn't stop you _then_, now did it?"

They stared at one another, one of them angry and the other amused.

Rufus shifted, suddenly aware of that strong, slender hand on his arm. He did his best to glare into Reno's eyes, but it was distracting to even _look_ at him when he had that jaded expression on his face—eyes half-lidded and sleepy, a soft smirk curving the corners of his thin lips, his head cocked just slightly to the left so that his red hair fell over his face. He looked at Rufus as if he were studying something new with the capacity to be dangerous, something whose claws should be avoided but would be dissected nonetheless. It was extremely disconcerting for Rufus to be looked at in such a way, as if his Turk was comparing what he saw before him with some report he'd memorized.

"Stop that!" he snapped, and jerked his arm away. "I'm not one of your fucking _missions_, Reno!"

The man's smirk widened into an actual smile, and he murmured, "Aren't you?"

Jesus, just like that Rufus wasn't angry anymore.

He licked his lips and tried to hide that fact from Reno, turning his head away, trying not to give away that his thoughts had veered from irritation to arousal.

He really needn't have bothered—Reno saw through him without any effort. Rufus may as well have been made of glass…

"You done being a twat?" he lazily inquired, shoving off of the door to light a cigarette.

"That depends," Rufus said, and turned back to glare at him. "Are you done being a goddamned _prick_?"

Reno snorted a little and laughed before giving Rufus a not-so-gentle shove towards his suite.

Wondering just what on earth had possessed him and hoping that his common sense would return once it stopped being so offended, Rufus moved down the hallway in a daze of nervous expectation and downright panic, his body already hard beneath his concealing clothing.


	10. Chapter 10!

In silence—awkward on Rufus's part, amused on Reno's—they went into the dark and quiet bedroom. Rufus didn't know what he was supposed to do, honestly. He'd never paid for sex in his life, and he had a feeling that treating Reno like a willing lover would only backfire on him. Reno wasn't his lover, willing or otherwise, he was a paid whore. Rufus had a sudden, unwelcome curiosity if this was something that Reno regularly did, even though the man insisted that he didn't sell himself.

"Get undressed, boss," Reno told him. "I can't fuck you through your clothes."

"Christ," Rufus breathed, appalled. Mechanically, he pulled off the hoodie and shed his shirt, his back to Reno. He wasn't exactly _shy_ about it, but his misgivings about the entire situation made him nervous and edgy. He sat on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes and socks, and then stood to step out of his designer jeans. When he straightened, he was totally nude and clearly ready to go, though is eagerness only shamed him. When he looked up he found those blue eyes drifting over him, keen even in this mute light, lingering over his chest and side, staring with some kind of absent and morbid curiosity.

Rufus flushed, suddenly remembering his scars.

It was easy to pretend that they didn't exist, that his flesh was just as whole and pale and lovely as it always had been—his girlfriends would never have mentioned it, and Rufus had been _far_ too drunk to recall if Charlie had shown any reaction to them. But now, with Reno's blue eyes drifting over his skin with that _look_ in them, Rufus felt more than a little self-conscious.

Actually, he felt embarrassed.

The scars weren't discolored, the medical technology at his disposal had been able to do _that_ much, at least. Still, from his right knee up his long thigh to bleed up his hip, the skin rippled. It looked as if someone had spilled flesh-colored wax on him in places, creating a ropey surface that he felt every day while showering. His right leg and thigh weren't the only places—more scars traced up his left side over his ribcage, spread in a wide splash up the left side of his chest. There was nothing he could do about them, and he'd ignored them for so long that they almost didn't seem to exist, but now Reno was looking at them—_scrutinizing_ them—and Rufus flushed to be so flawed. He took pains to hide them from the people around him. Indeed, no one in his inner circle had ever seen him nude, just his rare lovers whose opinions held no weight. But he didn't want Reno to look at him in such a way, to find something to be disgusted by.

"What're you squirming for, I already saw you buff, yo," Reno told him, reminding him that he, too, had been present that night with Charlie. As if Rufus needed to be reminded of such a thing.

"Not like this," Rufus whispered, and turned his back. His back, the only part of him not kissed by those awful flames, where his skin was still supple and soft and white. "Just…don't."

"Whassa matter?" Reno inquired. "You got a problem with the way you look? You think you're the only one with scars, boss? Or just the only one with scars who _matters_?"

Rufus flinched. He didn't think that _mattering_ had anything to do with it, he just saw the scars as they were—ugly, at times even horrifying, and he expected no less of this brutal, desensitized man behind him. He didn't even want to _speak_ of those scars, didn't want to run the risk of hearing Reno admit that they were every bit as awful as Rufus thought they were, and then some.

"Ain't nobody perfect, yo," Reno said, and Rufus heard him undressing but he was too tense to care much about it. "Just 'cause you got some nasty scars on you don't make you special."

"No, of course not," Rufus murmured, wondering what on earth would qualify as _special_ to Reno—apparently, blond hair and tits. Silently, he finished his thought that while it didn't make him special, it certainly kept him from _being_ special to anyone. Rufus ShinRa would never get another person in his life on the basis of his _looks_ anymore, not after that awful night when everything blew to hell around him. He might get them on the basis of his name, on the basis of his position and power, but never on his looks…And, to some people, looks were everything…

"You want me to cry you a river, yo, or what?" Reno asked. "Everybody's got fucking problems, Rufus—you ain't the only one."

"Do you have another setting besides _prick_?" Rufus asked, still not turning to face him.

"You ain't paying me to be nice to you," Reno reminded him.

"Well, I'm not paying you to speak, then, either!" Rufus snapped, embarrassed that he'd brought up their little arrangement again. Each time he did, it made Rufus feel worse, and he was a breath away from just giving the whole thing up. He could _unlearn_ his fascination with Reno, surely! And it would certainly bode better for him if he did.

"Consider it a complimentary gift, yo," Reno lowly said, the amusement thick in his voice.

Rufus headed for the bathroom, intent on just waiting inside until the red-head grew bored and left. The less he exposed himself to Reno, the safer he would be. The whole night had been a disaster and they clearly had no common ground to meet on, particularly not where sex was concerned. He wasn't afraid to rely on a well-timed retreat—he would admit that he was a coward where Reno was concerned, if only because of his fragile ego and his own lingering issues. Reno was the one person in the world who was not in awe and leery fear of Rufus's power, who wasn't afraid to say exactly what was on his mind, who wouldn't bend to Rufus's will or whims. In the world of Rufus ShinRa, such a person was frightening and best avoided. At least with distance they could _pretend_ the rules were still in place, that Rufus was the "Boss" he'd always been, and Reno was still the unpredictable dog.

He didn't even _hear_ Reno move, the man was that fast. One second he was somewhere at Rufus's back, and the next he was in _front_ of him, blocking his route.

"I need to use the bathroom," Rufus snapped, but he still sounded sullen.

"The fuck you do," Reno said, and gazed down at him with those half-lidded, cruelly interested and utterly arresting blue eyes. "You're rabbiting, yo."

"What?" Rufus asked, cloaking himself in misunderstand of the man's slang, though he knew very well what Reno meant—running like a rabbit, scared as a cotton-tail. Still, at least if he feigned not understanding the man's under-plate drawl, Reno might get irritated enough at their class difference and just _leave_.

"Don't play dumb, boss," Reno said, smirking. "Ain't either of us stupid, yo, so just drop it."

"_This_," Rufus exclaimed, taking a step back from him because when Reno loomed close like that it was more than just a touch disconcerting. He was just _too_ tall, _too_ lithely muscled. He made Rufus feel puny in comparison, even though he was the heavier of the two. Still, Reno had a solid, unyielding strength of will that Rufus felt he himself lacked, and so far he'd been able to keep his panic quietly contained on that count, but not if Reno kept worrying him like a dog with a bone, intimidating him by invading his personal space. "Has gone _way_ too far!"

"What's that, boss?" Reno asked, cocking his head, red hair falling around his pale face, that pretty-as-a-girl's face. _Christ_, why did he have to look so damnably approachable and innocent when he was as heartless as a snake? It just wasn't _fair_.

"_This_!" Rufus hissed, gesturing at Reno, noticing suddenly that the man had, indeed, been undressing, suddenly reminded of his own nudity, the scars, and his shame. He blushed again, a flawed has-been standing exposed before the supple smoothness of perfection. Despite those atrocious and frightening images all over his arms and sides, Reno was unmarred by anything as awful and ugly as Rufus's own scars. "This was a bad idea! I can write it off the last time as being drunk—it was a mistake, but it happened and we can both just forget about it—"

"You paid, yo," Reno told him, those blue eyes shuttering, suddenly cold.

Rufus blanched, dropping his eyes, idly focusing on the gleaming button of Reno's worn jeans. At least he was still _that_ dressed! He hadn't worn his Turk suit, and for whatever reason Rufus was abjectly grateful. The last thing he wanted reminders of were the things that kept them worlds apart.

"It was a favor," Rufus whispered, wishing it _had_ been. He knew why he'd done it—he wanted to see what it was like, to see if his reaction had been a one-time thing caused by too much alcohol and Charlie's amazing skills. He wanted to have Reno's rough, impersonal hands on him again, to see if there was a difference in the cold creature who killed for him and the one who would curl around his body like a lithe beast and have him to the tips of his predicured toes. It was curiosity, that was all. Just curiosity…

"Yeah?" Reno lazily inquired, sounding bored. "Well, so's this—but this _favor_ is kinda cutting into my night, yo, so cut the shit."

"Well, if you're in so much of a hurry," Rufus tightly told him, his gaze snapping back up to Reno's blank, bored face. "Then maybe you should just _go_."

"Chickenshit," Reno called him, and gave Rufus an impersonal shove towards the bed. "Make your mind up, yo, don't make me no difference—bed or floor, whichever, but you paid."

Rufus felt his stomach sink at Reno's casual announcement that he would as good as _rape_ him if needs be to be freed of his "favor". It was appalling just how easily those words spilled from his thin, beautiful lips, with no more emotional involvement than a discussion of the weather would evoke. It was black and white for Reno—you paid, you played whether you wanted to or not. You got what you put the money down for.

"Christ, what kind of monster _are_ you?" he asked, his pulse pounding in his throat, his adrenaline pumping and something very like fear racing through his nerves.

"The kind you require, yo," Reno reminded. "Hurry the fuck up, Rufus, I got places to be."

"You're not exactly setting a mood here!" Rufus pointed out, yet his body was still at attention, apparently undisturbed by things like decency and morality.

Reno laughed a little, genuinely amused, and asked, "The fuck, yo? You some kind of little girl or something, boss? You need to make out first? You're a goddamned _dude_, Rufus—fucking _act_ like one. Shit!"

Rufus opened his mouth in a shocked attempt to loudly protest, but Reno cut him off, saying, "You're gonna get your mouth running, I'm gonna put it to good use, 'cause I ain't got the time to talk you into doin' something you wanna do. You want it, it's on the table, lets go, already, _fuck_!"

_Put it to good _use?! Jesus! Just the thought of actually sucking Reno's cock was as horrifying as it was arousing, and Rufus just stared at him, aghast and needy, his brain finally taking the backseat to sulk at his continued ignoring of its various and truthful predictions. This was _not_ going to go well…

Reno popped the button on his pants and unzipped them like he stripped for a living. He even had that same bored look on his face that Rufus had seen on strippers' faces—this is just work, I am _so_ not involved, here.

His thumbs hooked into the lip of his jeans and he gave them a shove to push them past his hips. He didn't try to take them all the way _off_. He still had those scuffed and dirty combat boots on so he clearly had no plans on undressing completely, but what he did was more than enough to make Rufus swallow convulsively.

Those tattoos did, indeed, meet in a Vee above his groin, swirling tendrils of leaves and blood making the edges indistinct. That all by itself was immensely arousing, but when Reno shifted to free himself, Rufus almost swallowed his tongue.

Eyes wide and unblinking, mouth still hanging open in shock, Rufus stared down at a gleaming, heavy silver piercing right through the tip of Reno's gorgeous cock. It was a semi-circle of metal that nearly met at the ends and it ran right through the top of his penis and out through the urethra.

"Oh my _God_!" Rufus choked, more surprised by the piercing than he was by the sight of that stiff white flesh. He didn't even fully comprehend that his cock was flawlessly smooth and just as perfect as the rest of Reno, he could only stare at that piercing and gasp for breath, thinking of how _painful_ such a thing must be to get.

And then he thought of it _inside_ him, as it clearly had been the last time they'd been together. _That_ thought made him shiver, and Reno smirked at him, saying, "Yeah, yeah, get over it. I've had it for fifteen years, yo, so deal."

"Oh my—_holy _shit, _Reno_! Didn't that _hurt_?" he managed, actually drawing back as if afraid of it.

"It was worth it," Reno said, and the expression on his face very clearly said that something as trifling as _pain_ wouldn't keep him from something he wanted. "Get on the bed, yo."

"Is it…I mean…_safe_?" Rufus asked, backing towards the bed, eyes still glued to that piercing.

"Quit being such a cunt and let _me_ worry about shit like that," Reno ordered, moving forward with that hip-rolling gait of his, in no way hindered by his open jeans or his swaying erection weighted down by that large, terrifying piercing.

Rufus hit the edge of the bed and sat down, his face tilted up slightly to keep his eye on Reno's purported "prize."

Reno just gave him a push backwards, rather roughly urging him to roll over onto his belly. Rufus wasn't so sure that was a good idea but, then, the entire _night_ hadn't been a good idea so why stop the train-wreck of disasters _now_? He didn't even have the presence of mind to shudder, he just crawled up his huge and perfectly made bed on all fours, acutely aware of the man at his back, every hair on his nape lifted in terror.

The bed sank behind him, Reno's knee shifting against the inside of his own. He felt the rough cloth of denim and realized that the man had every intention of fucking him just as he was, without going to the trouble of undressing. The bed jostled again and Reno was kneeling behind him.

Rufus lowered his head and shuddered, eyes closed, his breath coming out in a long, stuttering rush of nerves. When Reno's warm fingers brushed him, he started and the man chuckled, murmuring, "Jumpy as a virgin, yo—fuckin' ridiculous."

Such an undignified position, so open and vulnerable. He couldn't really believe that he was willingly doing this, and for a long, insane moment he imagined that this must be some kind of nightmare—maybe he was still in a coma, maybe he'd never woken up after Meteor-Fall, maybe he was hooked to tubes and machines somewhere with most of his body truly burned away and unresponsive and his Turks were scattered to the four winds…maybe…

"You make this take any longer than it has to, and I'm gonna fuckin' _hurt_ you, yo," Reno informed him, and Rufus heard him fumbling with something, felt the brush of his body. He recalled that heavy ring and felt a deep ache of fear in his gut, but then he remembered why it was so vivid—Reno hadn't exactly been _uninterested_ at the time, and thinking of it gave Rufus some kind of sick, dark hope that the man wasn't totally impervious to him, even if he _was_ covered in ugly scars.

Reno's hand moved to cup one cheek, pushing him open. A second later slippery, warm metal pressed against him, and Rufus tensed in reflex, worried.

"Fucking _shit_, Rufus, what the fuck did I just tell you? _Fucker_!" Reno snapped, and Rufus was utterly outraged when that hand came off of him long enough to plant a hard, stinging, and completely _business-like_ slap on his backside. It shocked Rufus enough that he wasn't so focused on his fear, and before he could take a breath to argue the intelligence of _this_ happening, Reno was already slipping inside him, lube-slick and hot.

"_Christ!"_ Rufus hissed, teeth clenched against the pain of it. Wasn't this kind of thing supposed to feel _good_? Reno ignored his hiss and his other, slick hand took up its place on Rufus's hip, his hips rocking to feed that cock into him. It hurt worse than anything Rufus could recall except for the accident that had left him so flawed, but his own erection kept throbbing insistently as if even this could not sway it.

"You get any more tense, yo, and this is gonna go _real_ bad for you," Reno warned, and his voice was just as neutral and bored as it ever was.

Rufus breathed, something he'd been neglecting to do if the spots before his eyes meant anything. He breathed and willed himself to loosen up, to uncoil, to just fucking _let_ it _go_. His body slowly released the tension it had been holding, and the more he relaxed the less it hurt.

"Better," Reno grunted, hands hard and impersonal on his hips, the long fingers curled into soft, unmarked skin and scar alike, no flinching, no drawing back. Those lean hips flexed behind him and he moved closer, so deep inside Rufus that he was certain he would just rupture something and be done with it. Finally, he felt the rough material of Reno's jeans brush against his backside and knew that was it—he'd just consciously and willingly taken a cock, ball-deep.

"Holy _Christ_!" he moaned, shuddering hard at the realization, his whole body breaking out into a cold sweat.

"Doin' it for ya, ain't it, boss?" Reno asked, and if he were the least bit affected by it, it didn't show in his voice. His sinewy hips tightened against Rufus's backside and his fingers dug deep into the man's flesh. "Hang on."

Rufus wished he had something to hang on _to_. Reno drew back and lunged forward, forcing a harsh, guttural cry from Rufus's lips as he roughly sank back to the quick inside him. But the pain, however, quickly took second place to the heat building within him. He wasn't sure if it was the shape of Reno's admittedly beautiful cock, that decadent piercing, or a combination of the two, but whatever it was worked—with every deep and measured thrust he filled Rufus much further than his body could comfortably conform to, and in the process he shoved against things that might not otherwise have been stimulated. After a frightening, awful moment when Rufus was sure he was either going to piss himself or cum, he got his brain around the fact that it wasn't just his _mind_ making him feel so good. It was the _fucking_.

It felt good. It felt better than good. It felt amazing and Rufus found himself holding onto the bedspread like it was his last hope of salvation. And who knew, maybe it was—in a world where he let some half-feral killing machine ride him like he was some kind of roller-coaster, where Rufus-fucking-_ShinRa_ lay writhing and begging like some squirming actress in one of Reno's perpetual porn films, then maybe, just _maybe_, a bedspread could save his soul.

Because _he_ certainly wasn't going to bother.

His arms weakened and he dropped to his elbows with Reno's naked belly slapping against him, his skin as smooth and hairless as a baby's. He couldn't even hear his Turk _breathing_, but he felt his concentration, his morbid interest in what was happening. Rufus might not incite the least of desires in Reno with his scarred and blemished body, but he certainly kept the man's lazy attention. Those fingers were nearly crushing with the strength of their grip as he surged deep in a quick, forceful rhythm so that Rufus writhed on him, completely lost.

Ready to erupt at the least friction, Rufus managed to lift one shaking hand and stroked himself, his body bucking as he came after the first few hard tugs. His balls tightened and his back bowed, his entire body rocking in blinding pleasure as he spurted over his fingers onto his bed. He panted and moaned, aware that he sounded little better than a two-gil whore but not caring about it with the climax riding him damned-near as hard as _Reno_ was. It was a climax that fed on itself and on the rough thrusting of Reno's body, spiraling up and up until Rufus was so euphoric even the pain had stopped bothering him.

Shuddering as it started to fade, Rufus let his head drop back down and let his frantic hand slow its pace, his shivering body relishing every forceful shove of Reno's hips behind him, jarring him, filling him, that piercing sliding along inside him with mute skill.

Reno's hand moved from his hip and covered his wrist, forcing him to keep stroking, to hasten his rhythm. The man didn't touch him, no, but his message was clear enough—keep it up.

Rufus obeyed even though it was almost painful, and his panting little cries conveyed that. Perhaps it was his pain Reno wanted, or even the power to know he could force Rufus to do such a thing, but when Rufus shocked himself with another slightly painful and gut-wrenching orgasm, Reno lunged up over his back and came with him, as silent as the death he so often delivered.


	11. Chapter 11

Like some kind of hallucination, it was over.

Rufus slumped down on the bed and Reno slipped away like smoke. He went into Rufus's bathroom, ran the taps for awhile cleaning up, and then came slinking back out zipping and buttoning his pants, not even looking at Rufus.

Rufus looked at _him_, though, he couldn't help it. He watched that graceful and painted body stoop to grab up his shirt, his belly folding into those thin creases that only the extremely fit and thin can have. When he straightened to tug his shirt on, the bow of his back pushed that ring in his belly out, the light catching on it as well as the ones through his nipples. He tugged his hair free and let it fall down his back before casting around for his things, his boots whispering over the carpet.

He wished Reno wouldn't go, but he had no means or reason to make him stay, and asking would only earn him some spiteful, mocking response. Rufus felt a little fragile, still struggling to come to terms with the fact that he, apparently, was just designed for sex with another man. It was frightening but also a vast relief that there wasn't something _wrong_ with him—his bored disinterest in sleeping with women had caused him no little alarm over the years, and he'd begun to wonder if he weren't some kind of dispassionate iceberg, enjoying sex without really being able to fully appreciate it. Considering that his whole body was still trembling and too weak to move, he didn't think it would be fair to call himself an iceberg, and so he lay there on his bed, discarded, paid in full.

Reno pocketed his cigarettes and headed out of the open door, his slim figure momentarily silhouetted by the blinding hallway light.

He didn't even say goodbye. He didn't wave or pop off one of his comments, he just…_left_…

Rufus roused himself to close and lock his bedroom door, flushing. He leaned on it for a moment, frightened by the depth of his anger. That vile and tactless man had treated him just like a goddamned _john_! He'd fucked him and left him without a backwards glance—indeed, he couldn't seem to get away fast enough! Was he just so awful then? Was he _truly_ such a chore? Rufus ShinRa did _not_ appreciate being treated like a clinging, barely tolerated annoyance. He was a ShinRa! He was _the_ ShinRa! And Reno somehow didn't give two shits for that fact.

Rufus heaved a tired sigh and made his stiff, sore way to the bathroom to get cleaned up.

* * *

For awhile, he thought that might be the end of it. One transaction, payment made and goods delivered. When days melted into a week and change, Rufus had actually begun convincing himself that it was over and done with. He was hoping that it would fade around the edges eventually to be something more like a vivid fantasy. He stopped the rotating guard, he stopped interacting with his Turks at all except through Tseng. He couldn't trust himself to be impartial where Reno was concerned, and Rude just worried him.

But then, one morning he came into work and there was an envelope on his desk. Only one of the Turks could break into his office without being caught, and of them all only Reno was the most proficient with his picks, so there was no mystery who it came from. It was a white envelope simply labeled, "Favor" in Reno's blocky, left-handed script.

Inside was a fifteen year old hospital bill that had been sporadically paid over the years, not even enough to reduce the interest. The resulting cost was twice the original amount.

Rufus paid it.

Reno showed up at his penthouse that same night.

Unfortunately, it became something of a routine, though Rufus hated every transaction and Reno's dispassionate and bored disdain never relaxed around him. He'd leave one or two bills on the desk, and that night or the next he would come over and fuck Rufus with an almost _furious_ violence. Only once each time, no repeat performances, no affection—just his Turk who never took his shoes off, never did more than unzip his pants.

Rufus tried to pretend that it didn't bother him, but it _did_. He didn't mind paying those bills for Reno, he would bail out any of his Turks, it was simply good policy to keep them loyal and keep them blessedly free of the temptation to betray him. That Reno repaid him with such impersonal and reluctant sex merely burned his pride and made him increasingly paranoid about his scarring. Rufus was a man who had never doubted the strength of his own appeal, but his strength was based on power and Reno stripped that from him. Without it, he had only his appearance, and he wasn't going to fool himself on that count—yes, his face was handsome, a masculine mirror of his patrician and admittedly beautiful mother's, but Meteor-Fall had left him scarred and near death, left to forever bear the marks of that terrible night, of his terrible _failure_, on his very skin.

Each time Reno left a new envelope, Rufus would promise himself that it was the last time, but something in him didn't want it to end until he'd forced that lazy, untouchable, and frustrating creature to _acknowledge_ him! To look him in the eye and touch him like he'd no doubt touched thousands of women…

It was something Rufus was determined to have, but he knew with sick, despairing certainty that he never, ever would. The most he would ever have of Reno were these cold, quick fucks full of silence and resentment.

It left Rufus with a lot of time to think about what he was doing.

There was just so much about Reno that could never mesh with Rufus on so many levels…His lowly birth, his choice of lifestyles, his obvious deviancy, the fact that he lived with a woman who was, essentially, still a little girl—what could he have been _thinking_? It was at that point that his brain, finished sulking now that he was willing to listen to reason, gleefully reminded him that he _hadn't_ been thinking, and that was precisely his problem. He wouldn't even admit to _himself_ what his plans were regarding Reno, the man turned him into a goddamned teenaged _girl_, which Rufus reminded himself of constantly in an effort to disgust himself out of his fixation. This simply wasn't sane, safe, or healthy on any level and he was mad to even consider the fleeting possibility of maybe Reno perhaps becoming something rather more permanent in his life. He'd known the score from the word go—Reno was a ladies' man, a gambler, and a aberrant…fitting him into Rufus's life was like trying to make Tseng a stand-up comedian. It wasn't going to fucking happen, no matter how badly he wanted it or how much people would pay to see it.

* * *

"Hello?"

"_Hey_."

Rufus froze, his cell held to his ear and his heart thudding. There had been no bills lately, no reason for Reno to even come to his office and turn that chair into some benign parody of a stripper's pole.

"_Need a favor, boss_."

Rufus closed his eyes and sighed. For the first time in months, he was too tired for this shit. Rebuilding ShinRa Company was difficult enough that fighting a losing battle wasn't really enticing at the moment.

"Not tonight, Reno," Rufus told him, and started to hang up the phone.

"No, seriously, boss," Reno insisted. "I'm stuck someplace, need you to come get me."

"What?" Rufus asked, brows drawn. Was he in some kind of trouble? He felt uncomfortably worried, and hoped that Reno wasn't neck deep in something Rufus couldn't extract him from.

"I'm in the pen, yo," Reno said, and laughed a little. "They won't let me out without some kind of ID."

_Oh_.

Rufus sighed a little and asked, "Can't you call Rude or Tseng—"

"Rufus, they'll let me go with a warning if President ShinRa comes and asks all nice-like, you trackin'?" Reno drawled.

"Where is your ID at anyway?" Rufus snapped, uncomfortable that Reno was asking him to use his political power to pull a fast one on the locals. They were good people just trying to enforce the law, for God's sake!

"Left it at Nina's," Reno lowly said, and Rufus actually fucking _flinched_ at the mention of her name. He didn't know who Nina was, he'd never seen her, but Reno always mentioned Nina's, did it so consistently and off-handedly that Rufus could only surmise that she was some kind of close friend, probably another lover. "Just come get me, yo, will ya?"

"_Christ_," Rufus breathed, rubbing his forehead. "Fine. Are you at the station?"

"Yeah," Reno said.

"I'll be there in ten," Rufus told him. He dressed in his usual no-nonsense, Rufus ShinRa-on-the-job suit and had the car brought around, silently wondering why Reno was wandering around without any ID and why the local cops didn't recognize him as a Turk. Even without the suit, Reno was kinda high on the visibility scale, and most everyone in Edge knew him, if not by name then by description and deeds. It didn't occur to him, however, to wonder why they hadn't just run his prints until he was already getting out at the station, and by then it was too late to worry about it. Still, he knew that there were any number of ways to get around this ID issue that did _not_ require his presence. Reno must've done something _really_ bad if he wanted Rufus to get him out of it.

Reno was slouched in a cell, bantering with the guard, who was young and too innocent looking to be a policeman…well, police_woman_. Her sergeant was at the desk doing paperwork, and Rufus ignored Reno to go straight for help.

"Excuse me," he started.

"Well, yes, _Sir_!" the man gasped, beaming to be personally visited by Rufus ShinRa himself. The public, as a whole, didn't like ShinRa or anything that they had stood for, but one-on-one most people were still fawningly glad to see him and awed by his presence.

"Good evening," he said, putting on his most charming smile. "It would seem that one of my Turks has been misbehaving…"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Sir," the man said, apologetic, his smile sincere. "He got picked up running a red light and then he didn't have a license for his bike." His voice fell into a conspiratal whisper and he leaned close to Rufus, saying, "We didn't do a breathalyzer, Sir, but my beat-cop was certain he was drunk…" He straightened and beamed at Rufus again, still rather apologetic for just doing his job according to the laws which kept them all safe. "Without ID we can't release him…However, with _you_ vouching for his identity, we can go ahead and process him. I'll just need you to sign some paperwork, Sir, taking responsibility for him, and he'll have to send a copy of his ID to the courthouse within seven days…"

Rufus signed paperwork and only half-listened, nodding in the right places and smiling his best publicity smile. In short order, Reno was released to his "custody" and the two of them headed to the car.

Rufus didn't look at him. He just _couldn't_. Reno looked relaxed and delicious in his usual Turk suit that in no way hid his slender body, but that didn't change anything. It was just a reminder to Rufus that their relationship was purely business, and Rufus was purely fed up with it. He could only assume that Reno hadn't gone home after work, and the late hour meant that he'd been particularly _busy_.

He gave the driver instructions to take them to Reno's home, but the man snapped at the driver to nix that and go to the penthouse.

"Reno," Rufus tiredly said, amazed in some corner of his mind that the teenaged girl with rampaging hormones that he so often felt like had somehow grown up and pissed off, otherwise he'd be drooling all over his Turk by now. "You should go home."

"I owe you," Reno said, staring out the window. He didn't sound happy about it, and Rufus was anything but enthused himself. Having sex with someone who didn't enjoy it wasn't exactly the stuff his dreams were made of. Not anymore, at least.

"Then pay me back," Rufus softly told him. "You need to go home, you shouldn't leave her alone all night long."

"I don't fucking discuss Christa," Reno flatly told him, ending the conversation. Ending _all_ conversation.

Rufus leaned his head against the window and sighed, privately rather proud of himself that he could be so near Reno and not already be aching for him. Maybe familiarity _did_ breed contempt…or maybe he just wasn't getting what he'd thought he'd wanted after all…

They arrived and Rufus went straight up to his home, ignoring Reno as much as he could, not even wasting the breath to snap at him when he lit a cigarette in the elevator. It just didn't seem worth it to waste his breath on someone who refused to listen to him.

Reno lounged against the wall but his posture was tense, tightly coiled. Rufus wouldn't put it past him to be aware that something was off—his uncanny Turk could do the impossible, sensing Rufus's mood wasn't so far out of the realm of possibility as _that_. He seemed restless and impatient, no doubt just wanting to get this over with and get out, as always.

The thought annoyed him, and Rufus didn't hide that fact as he made his way inside, Reno at his heels like a barely restrained and unpredictable dog.


	12. Chapter 12!

"Why do you even bother?" Rufus asked him, yanking open his collar to loosen his shirt. He was irritated with Reno, irritated that the man could consider him such a trial, such a _chore_.

"You got your uses, yo," Reno told him, that cigarette bobbing in the corner of his mouth as he spoke, his eyes squinting against the smoke while his hands languidly unbuttoned his shirt.

Once again, Rufus felt like every inch the john, paying for his pleasure. He wondered what on earth he'd become. How the mighty have fallen! His father was probably laughing in his grave to know that his pure bred, high class son actually _paid_ this person to sleep with him. Someone who should be _honored_ to be touched by him, someone who should be _flattered_ and _begging_ for his attention—but no, he paid that someone instead.

"Fuckin' thinkin' again, you dumb shit," Reno laughed, and stubbed out his cigarette. "Look at you, Priss—all ready to cry."

"Shut up," Rufus told him, galled that he was at this point. He stalked off to his bedroom with Reno a lithe shadow behind him. Feeling testy, he snapped, "I don't pay you to _speak_, _dog_."

"That you certainly don't," Reno mused, assessing him with cagey eyes, shedding his shirt. "That's extra, yo—sweet talk ain't fuckin' free."

"Reno, the day I need affirmation from someone of _your_ questionable morals is the day that I should be shot," Rufus told him, not even slightly in the mood. He dropped his hands from his jacket, defeated. Before, the anticipation of touching Reno was enough to pull him through the man's obnoxious company, but not even _that_ could rouse him. Sighing, he turned to his bed and murmured, "Just go home, Reno. It isn't worth it."

"It's what you make it, boss," Reno said, and Rufus heard the soft creak of the dresser as Reno leaned against it, no doubt lounging in his usual lazy way. God alone knew why Reno couldn't stand like a normal person. _No_, he had to drape like some kind of slinky feline.

"I don't want to argue with you, dammit!" Rufus snapped, and took a deep breath to calm himself. A headache loomed and he pressed his fingers to his forehead, wincing as it made good its threat.

"You already bailed me, yo," Reno reminded him.

"I don't give a good god damn," Rufus told him, and resumed undressing, this time with the intent to go to sleep.

"You ain't getting it back."

_Why_ was he still _here_? For Christ's sake! Any other day and he'd be hightailing it for the door practically _skipping_ in joy to have his freedom! What, could he sense Rufus's headache pounding? He was goddamned uncanny sometimes.

"Just _keep_ it, Reno, _Christ_!" he spat, tossing his layers of shirts against the chair in something very near to a temper tantrum. He fumbled his belt open and shucked his pants off, stepping out of them towards the bed. "Go buy a whore, go buy drinks for every scumbag in Edge, go buy your mother flowers—I don't _care_ about the money. I've never cared about the _money_!"

He almost checked but saved himself, knowing his slight hesitation would make Reno reexamine that sentence and Rufus's peculiar emphasis which had clearly stated that he cared about _something_ where Reno was concerned. His aching head had made him careless around the one person who would probably rather kill him than entertain the notion that he might be…cared for.

He yanked back the covers and settled beneath them, feeling lonely and isolated. There were hundreds of women who would gladly share his bed, would listen avidly to his woes, who would care about him on command…but none of them knew the slightest about him, none of them were equals or even respected. As much as Reno drove him insane sometimes, Rufus greatly respected him and always had—he was an excellent Turk, an excellent killer, and he put up with years of ShinRa Senior's bullshit. Was it so much to ask that the man just _once_ respond to him like he was a person? Like he had feelings? Maybe Reno was just too used to being an emotionless, ticking time-bomb that he assumed everyone around him lacked human qualities, too.

"Lock the door on your way out," he reminded, hoping Reno hadn't lost his key somewhere. All of his Turks had keys to his penthouse in case some horror was to befall him and he needed them to come retrieve him.

There was a long silence, no sound of Reno even breathing. A few seconds later Rufus heard the snick of a lighter and smelled the faint smoke of a cigarette.

Annoyed, Rufus craned his head up and rolled half onto his back, sighing, "Reno, I can't make myself any clearer—"

"Shut your shit, I don't have my fuckin' key," Reno interrupted, moving to sit at the foot of the bed.

Rufus fell back with a tired sigh, whispering, "Great. I'll have to have the place re-keyed _again_."

"Ice it, yo," Reno lowly told him. "It's on my other ring, I left it at Nina's on accident—I left everything, remember?"

Rufus flinched. He definitely didn't need to be reminded that Reno spent so much time at the house of some woman named Nina, where he was distracted to the point that he forgot his ID and even his _keys_.

"So unless you wanna come lock the door behind me—"

"I'm going to bed," Rufus breathed, rolling back over onto his side, facing away from Reno. "Lock the door and stay or leave it unlocked on your way out, I don't give a fuck. I'm not in the mood for any more games tonight."

"Didn't know we were playin' one, yo."

"Everything is a game to you," Rufus sighed. Even if Reno stayed, he wouldn't stay in the same bed or even in the same _room_ as Rufus. He would sooner stay the night in a dumpster than lie down next to his mark. On those rare occasions when Reno _hadn't_ cut and run, the morning had found him sprawled out on the uncomfortable couch, unwilling to even sleep at his side. It made Rufus feel oddly ugly and dismayed…what was wrong with him, then? How was his presence unbearable when drug addicts and trolling whores were acceptable? How had he toppled from the pinnacle of desirability to the last rung on the ladder? Was it his scars—those twisting, rippling, swirling scars that wound along his hip and belly and chest? It hurt his pride, it hurt his feelings. It hurt him even deeper than that...

This whole nasty affair was a terrible idea that should never have gotten started. Tomorrow was a new day. He would cut this ghastly business venture short and call it ended, no harm done. His fragile ego could only take so much and there was no trace of even a faint crack in Reno's attitude towards him. All of his attempts to get closer to his intractable Turk, all of his attempts to understand him and know him had been rebuffed forcefully and seriously—Reno wanted nothing more from him than the extra gil, and all he was willing to do to get it was give Rufus the barest parts of himself, no more.

He started to drift off, only vaguely aware of Reno moving around. He very nearly roused himself to tell the man where the extra linens were, but he figured it was too much trouble when Reno would just scoff at his concern. He was already on the far side of sleep when the bed sank next to him.

Startled, he opened his eyes, wondering for a wild moment if Monica had somehow managed to reinvade his home.

There was a shift from the body next to him, a slight tug on the covers. Shocked, Rufus rolled slightly to look over his shoulder, better prepared to find an utter stranger lying there than his Turk.

Of course it was Reno, lying on his side facing away from Rufus. He clearly had no intentions of giving the man ideas—he was stretched out on top of the blankets, still wearing his pants, the long length of his ponytail making a trail over the light cover. The map of color on his slender back was muted by the dim light, but still clearly and sinuously following the curves and dips of his muscles. He looked gorgeous and edible in such a pose, with the sharp jut of his hip peeking over his waistband and the narrow sweep of his slender waist. He was right there, a touch away, and yet so unreachable he may as well be on another planet…

Rufus very nearly said the biting sentence that came to mind, that Reno could go ahead and take the _whole_ fucking bed because Rufus had no intentions of invading his precious personal space like some kind of goddamned _molester_. It just seemed like too much effort to make for someone who believed such things. Reno's touches were on the clock, paid for, not given for free—this was just his way of reminding his boss of that fact.

Exhausted and almost ill with disgust at himself, Rufus sank back against the pillow and softly told him, "No more, Reno. Just leave. I'd get more satisfaction from a blow-up doll without feeling like some kind of barely tolerated john. Leave the door unlocked, it doesn't matter, just please go…"

"Why's it bother you so much?" Reno asked, and he sounded oddly curious.

Sighing, Rufus explained, "You'd rather freeze than share a bed with me. You'd sleep in an alley before running the risk that I might touch you…I wanted you, Reno, but I never wanted _this_. I have enough in my life stressing me out than to go on pursuing something that disgusts you and makes me feel like some kind of sex offender. You got 'paid' for tonight, you didn't have to put up with me—cut and run. Consider it severance pay. I'll see you Monday morning."

Reno rolled a little, lifting his head to peer at Rufus in the darkness.

"You're such a goddamned _girl_, yo," he snorted, and shoved himself off of the bed.

Rufus didn't respond. Reno could insult him all the way to the front door, so long as he used it. Feeling relief overshadowed by something too keenly akin to grief for comfort, Rufus settled back into the soft covers to spend his lonely night in sleep.

A few minutes later the covers got snatched off of him. Groaning with annoyance—why wouldn't he just _go_?—Rufus rolled onto his back and covered his face with both hands, moaning, "Please, Reno, no tantrums…"

"Shut the fuck up," the man said, sounding cross.

The bed sank again and that lean, warm body was sliding in next to him utterly bare, stunning Rufus into wide-eyed shock.

"Reno! What the—"

"Quit fuckin' squirming, you dumb fuck," the man sourly cursed, yanking the covers over them with ill grace. He slumped down into the bed with a sigh of irritation before he rolled onto his side, once more away from Rufus.

His shock gave way to wariness, and Rufus lowly told him, "I'm not giving you any extra for this—"

"Go to sleep, god damn it!" Reno snapped, and fell still.

Rufus stared at the back of his head, the only part of him he could see. The radiant warmth of Reno's body slowly seeped into him, and he tried to puzzle out why the man had stayed when Rufus had offered him a freebie _and_ an end to something he hated doing. Was he just being contrary? When Rufus said "go" then Reno heard "stay"? Or had he sensed that Rufus was serious when he told him it was over? Did he need the money so badly that he couldn't have Rufus call it quits? Turks got paid well for their service, and Rufus had paid off all of his debts so there _shouldn't_ be monetary issues…Still, it was only once Rufus had uttered his decision that Reno had altered his rigid rules, and Rufus wasn't going to fool himself into thinking that the man simply didn't want it to end. Romanticizing what the two of them shared was as laughable as it was folly. From the first Reno had made it clear that he only liked women—he had more personal interest in watching paint dry than he had in Rufus ShinRa.

Rufus rolled over to face that mapped and slender back and Reno stiffened, clearly expecting him to reach out.

Chastened, reminded of how unwelcome he truly was, Rufus rolled away and curled into a ball, wondering just where in the hell he'd gone wrong.

* * *

He woke in the middle of the night, roused from his feverish dreams by a hand clamping firmly over his moaning mouth. Bewildered, he blinked rapidly to find Reno looking down at him with that cool, detached look on his face.

"You woke me up, yo."

Rufus very nearly apologized, but the hand prevented it and the situation was so ludicrous that he stopped himself. His body ached and he wished Reno wasn't around so he could just take care of it and go back to sleep. Imagine that, having the key element to the very dream that had so aroused him present but wishing that same person gone. He didn't even make sense to _himself_ these days.

Reno's hand twisted on his mouth but didn't let up as he roughly rolled back onto his back, dragging Rufus atop him. How the slender, rangy man could always wrangle his own heavier body with such ease was a continuous mystery to Rufus, and he found himself focusing on it as he sat astraddle Reno's narrow hips, that hand locked over his mouth. He looked down at his swollen cock, farther down to see where those tattoos joined on Reno's lower belly. He felt the man's free hand behind him, no doubt working himself into an erection.

Servicing the paying customer.

Rufus jerked his head back and pushed with both hands on that belly, intending to get up.

"Knock it off," Reno snapped, and snatched him back one-handed.

"Let me up," Rufus ordered, and avoided that palm to no avail—it slapped back over his mouth. Aggravated, he wrapped both hands around Reno's slender wrist and pushed, pulling his head back again. "Reno, just go—"

"Keep it up and I'll smack the shit outta you," Reno warned him, and Rufus had no doubt that he meant it. "You're paid up, you prissy shit—I ain't owing you fuck-all."

"I'm not in any mood—"

"I can see that," Reno cut him off, and Rufus flushed, embarrassed that his erection so obviously invalidated his words. "Just shut your box and deal, yo."

God, it was so impersonal it was almost _funny_. Reno lifted his squirming, resisting body and somehow managed to get Rufus to hold still long enough to get partially inside him. And that was all it took. Just that barest nudge and Rufus was pushing himself eagerly down on him, willfully impaling himself on all that hard, rigid heat. Reno's hands took up their customary position at his hips, shoving him down on that relentless cock even as those sinewy hips snapped up in pitiless rhythm.

Rufus moaned, his head hanging and his soul hurting, his throbbing cock pulsing where it strained into empty air. Defeated, he arched forward over himself, letting the spill of his hair hide his body from Reno's burning, impersonal eyes. He took his pleasure in private, knowing that the man would touch him no more than he had to.

Because Reno never really _touched_ him. He offered his body, the stuff of Rufus's fantasies, his hard grip on Rufus's hips and his hard cock shoving inside him. He never closed that roughened palm around Rufus, never so much as brushed him there, never let his hands wander anywhere but his backside when he entered him and his hips while he fucked him.

It didn't matter, just being filled by him was enough for Rufus—a few deep thrusts and he would clench and cum like a two-gil whore, arched over Reno's body to hide that eruption from him. Sometimes he touched himself, but he never let Reno see him do it. And once he came, once he writhed on that fat cock, moaning like a godless slut, Reno would angle those narrow hips and work mechanically for his own release.

Sometimes Rufus wondered if he even enjoyed it at all, but he knew that Reno always came, filling him with rough thrusts. As he always said, a hole is a hole. He could have closed his eyes and imagined someone else.

But he didn't.

He kept that steady, cool gaze on Rufus the whole time. He didn't flinch from it.

Reno always owned what he did.

Rufus came abruptly, gasping a little, one frantic hand trying to contain the eruption, to keep it from spilling onto Reno's washboard stomach. Reno's pace picked up and those hips rammed into him, the faint pulse of his cock the only sign that he was coming as he thrust. When he was done, he gave Rufus a shove to get up, to get off of him, to stop _touching_ him.

Rufus rolled away, flushed and sweating. He looked at Reno, a fucking wet-dream lying sprawled in his bed, not even out of breath. Those twisting tattoos mapped a path down both sides from beneath his arms, angling over his slim hips to converge above his groin, a frame of riotous color for the stark white beauty of his chest and belly and still-stiff cock with that wet, gleaming piercing.

Rufus wanted to say something to him, to tell him he was beautiful in that moment, his skin almost luminous in the dim light. Such a shame to cover it with such hideous, pointless images, but it suited him. Such a richness of deviant artistry so cleverly painted that his Turk uniform gave no hint of it existing, even with the indecent way Reno chose to wear his clothing—just those two slashes beneath his eyes, a mild hint to what lay beneath.

He was suddenly overcome by what had caused him such recent discontent. He wanted to _know _this strange and unpredictable man…and the chances of that happening were so nonexistent that it made him even more melancholy. Saddened, momentarily unable to control himself, he reached out just to touch him, to feel the silky texture of his smooth chest, to trace his fingers down the ridge of his belly to the point where those tattoos met.

Reno caught his wrist before Rufus even reached him, squeezing with painful, grim intent.

"You ain't allowed touch me," he said, his voice low with serious warning. "_Ever_."

Rufus jerked his hand back, embarrassed and shamed, offended that he'd been rejected, shocked out his grief. He'd just been trying to…to…to what? Be closer to him? Appreciate him? Of course Reno would reject such a thing, he had no understanding of anything outside of himself, no care for others. He would no more understand wanting to touch someone with tenderness than he would understand quantum physics.

"You _pay_ me, boss. You don't fucking _own_ me," Reno snarled, his anger somehow out of proportion to Rufus's innocent crime. The Turk wasn't just angry, he was _furious_. "I'm not your goddamned lapdog."

Finding an out for his temporary descent into the madness of actually _caring_ for this rude, emotionless killing machine, Rufus coldly drew back, snapping, "No, Reno, you're my goddamned _watch dog_."

Reno breathed a soft curse in his direction and rolled over onto his stomach.

Rufus, aware that he was no longer being watched, simply looked at him, admiring those sinewy shoulders, the puddle of that long pony tail which coiled in ropes between his shoulder blades and trailed in a wisp down his upper back. Those disturbing, cavorting images were indistinguishable in the darkness, and Rufus was glad of it. The enormous tattoo that defiled Reno's back bothered him on an instinctual level—angels being torn from the sky, dragged down by their demonic cousins to have their innocence eaten from them, gnawed away to leave the bare bones of despair.

"You don't have to sulk," he said, and was suddenly tired to tears, tired of it _all_.

It wasn't enough anymore. At first, it had been—just the man himself, lusted after for so long, yearned for with such force. His mere presence in Rufus's sex life had been such sensory overload that Rufus hadn't had _time_ to think of more. Now he wanted it. It wasn't enough to have those hard hands digging into his hips while he was fucked so hard it hurt. It wasn't enough to be able to open his eyes and see Reno's handsome, impassive face before him. He wanted _reaction_, he wanted _substance_…he wanted to be needed as badly as he himself needed Reno. "I wasn't petting you, Reno. I just..."

Reno pushed himself up effortlessly, the strong muscles of his biceps and corded forearms moving like silk beneath his inked skin as he shoved himself out of the bed. Silently, he began to dress.

"What are you doing?" Rufus asked, and his panic made him sound demanding, superior.

"I'm leaving, you goddamned twat," Reno muttered, pausing a moment to light a cigarette. As soon as he took a deep drag, he straightened and pulled on his shirt, that colorful leanness where his belly narrowed into his loins showing behind his open fly. He didn't bother to fasten his pants or button his shirt, he yanked his jacket on and jammed his feet into his unlaced combat boots. With a tug to free his ponytail, he headed for the door.

"Reno!"

His Fastest Turk flew him the bird over his shoulder and strode out of his suite. A moment later the front door slammed, and Rufus was left all alone in his big, cold bed.


	13. Chapter 13

That was the end of it for awhile—Reno had deigned to sleep next to him and, apparently, that irritated the Turk to no end. _Compromise_ was something the man clearly had no patience with or desire to do, and Rufus was stinging from that bitter rejection for weeks afterwards. It was one thing to simply be told "no" and quite another to be shoved away like some kind of horrible monster…It made him wonder how many other people had shared his bed and silently believed him to be a visual nightmare, but just lacked Reno's courage to let it show. At least his Turk had never fooled him, never tried to pretend that Rufus was anything other than something to be tolerated. The only compliment he'd ever paid Rufus was to call him "pretty" and that had merely been to get Charlie to come over, not something said to Rufus's face.

It was with something like shock that Rufus realized how much time had passed since he'd started that awful game with Reno—nearly eight months, now. Eight months of being led by the cock and paying to be fooled…It was rather sick and sad that this was the longest _relationship_ that Rufus had ever had, and it was somehow fitting that it was a business deal at that. Rufus ShinRa had been born a businessman; it was the only thing he knew. He could only wish in some secret little corner of himself that he might one day find someone who could take him as he was, scars, flaws and all…Until then, well, sufficed to say that the loneliest place in the world was at the top.

He lost himself in work, drowned himself in the rebuilding of Edge, of the world at large. He did his best to redeem the name of ShinRa and found humorous irony in the fact that he was and _would_ be the last one this planet would see. Perhaps he could make amends in his lifetime. If not, then perhaps the world would at least think back on him with the understanding that he'd tried. It all gobbled up enough of his time that he had little to spend on his sadness. Somehow, life just wasn't as vivid without Reno's foul mouth and shocking deviancy shaking things up.

A month after that disastrous encounter, Rufus found himself at home with nothing more to do than watch television for a few hours before bed. No emergencies, no paperwork, no charity events—just him in his comfy, worn cargo pants, the scars on his chest well hidden behind a loose button-up.

Unfortunately, the television offered minimal distraction, and he found his gaze wandering to the bar and remembering that night when Reno had brought Charlie over—the night this whole mess had started.

Sighing, Rufus got up off of the couch and went to the bar, smoothing his hands over the polished wood. He saw that his housekeeper had restocked his used whiskey. Smiling a little, he pulled up one bottle and then another and put them on the bar's smooth surface.

"Well, why not?" he murmured. "I only have myself to please, after all. Right, dad?"

He thought of his portly and intolerable father and smiled—old ShinRa Senior would've blown an artery to know his son was gay and hopelessly _obsessed_ with a certain sleazy, red-headed Turk. The idea of it was amusing, and Rufus got himself a glass and settled down to drink his problems away. It wasn't responsible and it certainly wasn't a grown-up thing to do, but he had so little comfort in his life that he could afford to be reckless in the privacy of his own home.

He didn't drink in earnest, he merely lingered over every sip, letting it warm him and chase away that knot of loneliness inside him. He'd only been at it for half an hour or so before his phone started to chirp. He shoved himself off of the stool to locate the stupidly ringing thing on the end table near the couch.

He wouldn't admit even to himself that he hoped it was Reno.

"…'Lo?"

"Sir! Are you alright?"

_Tseng_.

"Fine, why?" he asked, and stumbled a little on his way back to the bar, noting with consternation that his glass was empty. He tried to refill it, spilled some, and opted to just drink from the bottle. He didn't _think_ he was drunk, but he was by no means sober anymore.

"We just received a threat, Sir," Tseng gravely told him. "I've sent the Turks out to take care of it, someone is on their way there now."

"What?" Rufus asked, irritated, not quite catching what Tseng had said outside of someone coming over. "I'm _fine_, Tseng, I don't need a guard."

"Sir, are you feeling well?" Tseng inquired, sounding concerned.

"I'm _fine_!" Rufus insisted, and took another noisy swig, wincing at the taste of it. He really needed to start keeping beer in the penthouse. "Honestly, I don't want one of the Turks hanging around here, they scare the other residents…"

"Sir," Tseng sighed, having apparently guessed what was wrong with Rufus. "There is a Turk on the way and that is the end of it. There will _be_ a Turk until this threat is unearthed and properly disposed of. Now, sit tight and wait, Sir."

"_Tseng_!" Rufus said, trying to sound authoritative but managing to sound like he had as a boy when the older, solemn Turk had practically raised him. "I don't—"

There was a rattle at the door and Rufus dropped the phone standing up. He bent to scoop it up and managed to get the phone back up to his face to hear Tseng saying in something near to a panic, "_Sir?! Sir?!"_

"It's okay, there's just someone at the door," Rufus told him, and walked to the foyer with Tseng urging him not to open it.

Rufus was too aggravated at having his quiet evening interrupted to have any caution. He threw the many bolts and swung the door wide open to catch Reno in the process of using his keys.

"Fuck," he said, and hung up on Tseng's alarmed voice. "Wasn't there anyone else?"

"Do I _look_ fuckin' pleased to be here?" Reno asked, as irate as Rufus was.

Rufus just left him standing there, opting to return to his bar. He didn't intentionally ignore Reno, it just worked out that way—even _before_, if Rufus hadn't paid attention to him the man wouldn't exactly engage him in what could be termed conversation. Only when sex was on the menu would Reno interact with him, and he wasn't here on a favor, not tonight.

Rufus left the locking and guarding of the door to Reno, who said nothing more to him. The lazy, rangy man stayed put, lighting a cigarette and waiting out the threat while Rufus returned to his drinking.

It was rather spoiled now, with Reno there. Rufus was still offended by the man's reaction to him and absently, self-consciously rubbed the tracings of the scars on his ribcage, feeling the bumpy tissue beneath his shirt. It took all the fun out of his drinking and turned into something rather more desperate and sad, _pathetic_, even…Like his life had become…

"Yeah, he's fine, yo, just being pissy," he heard Reno say, apparently on the phone with Tseng. There was a long pause before the man asked, "If Rude and Elena put him under then why I gotta stay, yo?"

Rufus flushed and chugged another few swallows, ashamed of himself and ashamed of what he'd done with that ruthless, heartless man who only ever wanted to be wherever Rufus _wasn't_.

"Yeah, alright, fine," Reno said, sounding put out. "Whatever, Tseng, I'll see you at work…Yeah, go fuck yourself, too, prick…" he laughed suddenly, teasing the man whom he truly respected, "I know, right? No problem, yo. See ya."

Rufus didn't look up when Reno neared and sat down next to him, swiveling his stool so he could lean against the wall and face Rufus, his arm draped over the stiff back of the chair he sat sideways in. Without a word, he upended a shot glass and poured himself a shot of Rufus's whiskey.

"Aren't you on duty?" Rufus asked, frowning at him and resisting the urge to just get up and leave. Reno might've embarrassed and hurt him but there was no reason to give him the satisfaction of _knowing_ he had.

"Not particularly," Reno said, and downed it before filling it again. "Tseng wants you babysat tonight, yo. He ain't a hundred percent that you're in the clear."

Rufus noticed that Reno's blue eyes were sharp and aware, too wide-awake and alert. He'd never seen him so _present_ before and had no idea what to make of it. When he realized he'd been staring, he looked away and took the bottle back, tipping it to his lips.

"Jesus, yo, you're hitting it hard tonight," Reno remarked, and took the bottle away from him to fill Rufus's discarded glass. "There—at least pretend you got some manners, boss."

"Asshole," Rufus muttered, but sipped at it anyway. He sipped because he was already sliding down that slippery slope towards drunk. He wasn't a recreational drinker by any means and usually disliked the feeling of not being in control of himself. Tonight it was probably the only thing that would get him through without losing it on his Turk. Maybe he _should_ have Reno killed…

"You done sulking?" Reno asked him, leaning back and lighting yet another cigarette before downing another shot.

"You done being a prickly shithead?" Rufus inquired, sipping with a little more urgency.

"You crossed a line you don't cross with me, boss."

Rufus laughed a little and sighed, "And you cross lines with me daily that no other employee is allowed to cross…Oh _irony_…"

Reno was strangely silent, just watching him with those too-aware blue eyes. Finally, he murmured, "What did you want?"

Rufus cocked a brow at him, wobbling a little on his stool. He rather appreciated that the alcohol made him less aware of Reno as a threat, rendered him less intimidating and easier to deal with.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you didn't mean to pet me," Reno said, and his voice dropped into a low purr, as if they were standing in the middle of a minefield and a loud noise might spell their doom. "So…what _did_ you want, then? You started to explain…"

"Yeah, and you turned into a dickhead and pissed off," Rufus reminded him, chuckling at his own expense. "It didn't matter to you then, so it doesn't matter now—drink up."

Reno followed the excellent advice and refilled, still watching Rufus nursing his drink.

"Maybe I'm just curious," he finally told him, and he had that _look_ on his face like in the bar, like when he saw something he could win at, a mark to hit.

Rufus gave him a wary glare and snapped, "I don't give two shits, Reno. It's done with, the whole thing is done with…"

Reno said nothing, just watched him.

Rufus flushed, growling, "Look, Reno, would it make any difference? I'm done playing your games, okay? I'm getting out while the getting is good—I've paid off every bill you could possibly come up with, some of which were a little ridiculous, I might add. A line of credit at the _bookstore_, for the love of heaven! You could've paid it a thousand times over with your salary—_but_, I digress. In the end, it comes down to this: you are a sociopath and my Turk and that will, apparently, never change…and _I_ am the one with all of the money, power, and fame, sleeping all by myself in a bed big enough for four."

He tipped his shot glass and sighed, hiccupping a little before woozily putting it back down on the bar.

"They never tell you what it's like," he said, speaking only to himself, the words a whisper. "Do your best, try your hardest, claw your way to the top and when it's too late to take it back you find out…you're the only one there."

"That bug you, boss?" Reno inquired, and poured him more and the last of it for himself. Before he slammed that shot, too, he opened the other bottle. Always thinking ahead, his Turks.

"Should it?" Rufus laughed, feeling ridiculous and a little stupid. Here he was with everything a man could ask for, and the only thing he wanted was the one thing he _couldn't_ ask for. "I don't have any emotions, right? I'm cold and reserved and cruel, aren't I? I'm the son of a vicious bastard who built an empire I helped topple and I'm a monster irreparably marked so that everyone will know it. How could something like _that_ bother something like _me_, Reno? You tell me."

"Someone," Reno said.

"Eh?" Rufus asked, trying to hold his glass without spilling. He brought his lips down to it instead of the glass up to him.

"Some_one_," Reno said again, washing back another shot. "Not some_thing_."

Rufus actually laughed at that, wiping his lips and wincing past the burn of alcohol.

"My mistake," he whispered, though he'd said what he'd meant.

They both fell silent while Reno worked diligently to get to the state of inebriation that Rufus was already headlong into. Rufus didn't mind the silence. When he was drunk he tended to make an ass out of himself and turn into an emotional pansy. Being in that state around Reno was about as safe as bleeding while locked in a cage with a very hungry wolf—anything and everything could and would be used against him without conscience or second thought.

He was almost into a comfort zone when Reno finally broke the silence and asked, "You want I should do you a favor, boss?"

Reno's eyes had lost that alert attentiveness, returning to their usual half-asleep, glittering appearance. At least Rufus now knew what caused that sleepy, lazy look to appear on his Turk's face—apparently, Reno was always drunk.

Rufus just stared at him in stupid amazement, not able to properly process what Reno was saying until he came to two conclusions: one, that Reno _was_ actually drunk; and two, that Reno was making fun of him.

"You are something else," he slurred, laughing at the assumed joke and slumping heavily to one side, his balance off. "I've been able to get anybody I've ever wanted, Reno—but even when I had you…"

He spread his fingers wide, mimicking something flying off.

Reno smirked and tipped his head back against the wall, those gleaming blue eyes still fixed on him, somehow pleased by what Rufus had said.

"Ain't nobody got me, yo."

"'Cept Christa," Rufus reminded, and hiccupped, hanging his head.

Reno took another deep drag off of his cigarette and gave him that unfathomable, all-too-amused smile, murmuring, "Except Christa…"

Rufus realized he was sulking, but he couldn't help it. The booze made him maudlin and Reno's teasing only upset him. How could he get jealous over Reno's young lover when _he_ had come after? _He_ was the other person? He'd paid him, this gorgeous and frightening man. And no matter how much he ever paid him, he couldn't buy what Reno had already given utterly to someone else…

"I'm gonna hit the sack," he murmured, and slid off of his stool, holding tightly to the bar to keep from falling.

Reno laughed at him, snorting a little and crushing out his cigarette.

"Careful."

"I'm fine!" Rufus said, brows drawn, irritated that he wasn't worthy of Reno's affection, but sufficed well enough for his amusement.

Reno lifted an eyebrow and cocked his head, draining his glass in a fluid movement, watching Rufus desperately trying to gain his balance enough to walk.

Rufus took a step and paused, the room spinning.

"You need help, yo?"

"No," Rufus snapped, suddenly uncomfortable. He was afraid that it would start all over again if he gave in to even the least of the man's suggestions. Reno had manipulated him with ease into the role of paying customer, but Rufus couldn't bear to be suckered again. Reno was, unfortunately (and Rufus could only easily admit to this while _drunk_), much more to Rufus than just a body…he just didn't know how to tell him, and knew that Reno would never care. He was a job, he was a fattened paycheck, _he_ was the body. Suddenly defensive, he said, "I'm not _work_, Reno…"

"Fuck," the man cursed, still rather amused. "You sure turn into a weepy cunt when you drink."

"At least I—" hiccup, "—_have_ emotions, you _skank_!"

"Good one," Reno sniggered, insulting either the insult itself or Rufus's clever use of adjectives. Even drunk Rufus would admit that 'skank' was lame. Defeated even in this, he staggered towards his bedroom.

He had a little trouble getting down the hallway to his suite, and he knocked into the wall a few times, cursing. When he got to the bed his clothing stymied him, making him wobble dangerously and curse. Frustrated, he paused for a second to catch his breath and jumped when two long, slender white hands slipped under his arms to start unbuttoning his shirt.

"Stop it," he whispered, so tired and sick of it all. "I can't keep it up, Reno."

"They make pills for that, yo," came the lazy reply. He could feel the man's breath against his nape, Reno's head bent in concentration as he looked over Rufus's shoulder at his handiwork.

"I mean _this_!" Rufus hissed, angered that the man was making light of it. "I don't want to be some kind of paying customer to you!"

"You _paid_ tonight, boss?" Reno teased, yanking that shirt from his shoulders and going to work on the tie of his pants, noting, "Keepin' it up just fine from this angle."

"I don't want _prostitution_," Rufus suddenly decided. "I'm not a goddamned _deviant_, Reno!"

"So, what d'you want, Rufus?" Reno asked, and rested his hands on Rufus's hips when he finished undoing his pants. His long fingers had slipped beneath the lip of Rufus's pants, absently curled against smooth, warm skin on one side and melted horror on the other.

Rufus couldn't put it into words. His shoulders slumped and his head dropped, his entire body drooping in defeat.

"I just…I…" he shrugged helplessly. "I can't keep doing this because when it comes down to it, I don't _matter_. And being with you just hammers that home. Christ, I _pay_ for sex like some kind of homely hunchback!"

"Why do you?" Reno asked, and his hands were so warm, so _welcome_.

"It's _you_," Rufus said, and laughed harshly, moaning into his hands in mingled frustration and shame. "Because it's _you_…Christ, who _wouldn't_."

"Flattered, boss," Reno said, sounding anything but. His hands had tightened subtly on Rufus's hips, and the man knew he was probably struggling to keep from hitting him, or just walking away. In fact, he couldn't believe that Reno was still here on the heels of what pretty much amounted to an admission of caring.

Rufus dropped his hands, the booze making him feel like an emotional little girl who'd just thrown an ungodly tantrum. He _definitely_ didn't pay Reno enough to take this kind of shit.

"I beg your pardon," he said, taking a deep breath. He'd been born a businessman, he knew better than anyone that emotions had no place in deals. "I don't know what's gotten into me but I certainly have no right to take it out on you—you're just doing your _job_. Please, go ahead and take off, Reno, I'll tell Tseng I made you leave."

Reno didn't let go of him, he just pushed his fingers down a little, loosening Rufus's pants.

"You don't h—"

"Easy money, yo," Reno whispered, and laughed against Rufus's neck.

"I don't want it to be business, Reno," Rufus told him, braced for the anger, for the irate reminder that _nobody_ got to Reno, that _nobody_ was allowed to care for him.

"You think too much," Reno said, and Rufus stood frozen in some kind of awed disbelief when those slender hands swept up his sides and back down to rest on his hips again, thumbs pressing lightly at the base of his spine in a way that lifted goosebumps on his exposed skin. A bare second later a hot, wet tongue snaked its way down his nape, forcing a low moan from his mouth.

* * *

**A/N: Now we're on the countdown. This is the fifth from last chapter, so thank you to all of you who have been hanging in there, and for anyone who just picked this story up on a whim and read it through, I hope you've been enjoying!**


	14. Chapter 14!

He couldn't even process that this was _Reno_ touching him—this man who only ever put his hands on him to undress him or hold his hips steady while they fucked. It was more shocking than a slap to the face!

"Reno…" he started, confused and too drunk, sighing when those arms folded tightly around him from the back to squeeze him up against the man's hard chest, that amazing mouth drifting to his ear to suck on his earlobe. Even if this was just a bought illusion of true attraction, even if he would probably wind up paying an ungodly amount for this farce of affection, Rufus realized it was as much as he would ever get from Reno. As much as that thought saddened him he wouldn't deny this wondrous thing.

He just _melted_ into that warm embrace, his bones liquefying, his skin heating up. He wanted to touch Reno back but was a little hesitant to, not wanting to fuck the moment up and somehow anger his surprising and irritable Turk. So he just went limp in those slender, shockingly strong arms while Reno grazed that perfect mouth down his throat.

"You fallin' asleep, yo?" Reno asked, the faintest strains of amusement in his low, purring voice. "Thought you'd want this after all your bitching."

"I do," Rufus breathlessly agreed, and couldn't suppress his moan when Reno's hand went plunging down his pants. He nearly came at the rough touch, his back arching, his head falling back over Reno's shoulder. To have gone so long wanting such a thing and then to be so suddenly granted it was a little more than his drunken mind could handle.

Reno didn't touch him like it was something he did every day, though he was no less sure of himself in this than he was in anything. Rufus suddenly wondered if he'd been Reno's first male lover, and the thought made him flush with victory even as he moaned again, the man's hand fisting him slowly.

His hips arched and he gasped a pleading request for Reno to ease off, his eyes watering with the force of his pleasure. Reno hand kept up that slow, steady rub, his other arm locked around Rufus's chest, his long fingers curling into the man's shoulder.

Rufus shuddered hard in his tight embrace, overwhelmed. He was already dangerously close to erupting, and moaned as he writhed in rhythm with Reno's stroking fist. His shaking hands lifted to grip the corded muscle of Reno's forearm and his hips bucked, his flanks and belly straining. Breathlessly, he begged, "Please…_stop_, Reno! _Please_!"

"Couple of jerks and you're creamin', yo," Reno breathed, and Rufus felt his wet tongue at his ear. He sobbed when Reno's hand picked up its pace and his soft voice purred, "Go ahead and pop, Rufus, we got all night…"

And just like that, he was coming.

His head tipped forward to _see_ it, to see Reno's white hand wrapped around his cock, to see the heavy ribbons of his cum shooting out over those pale, tight fingers. He sobbed again, louder this time, his hips snapping in a spasm that just wouldn't subside

Reno pushed up against him and the heavy, thick heat of his hard cock trapped behind his pants made Rufus rupture all over again, convulsing so hard he was sure something in him would burst. And that rangy, wiry, _strong_ body just engulfed him, cradling his wild spasm with lean muscle and lithe heat.

Finally, Reno had mercy on him and slid his hand free, pushing Rufus's pants down around his bare ankles.

Rufus swayed a little when the man let him go, still wobbly from the booze and the amazing climax he'd just felt. His vision swam and he shook, hardly aware of Reno shedding his jacket and revealing those riotous tattoos, those gleaming hoops in his tender flesh. Emboldened by the alcohol, he reached out and touched the man's hard, muscled belly, feeling it tighten beneath his fingertips. Reno held still for it as he shucked his unbuttoned shirt, and let Rufus tug gently on that ring through his perfect navel.

For the first time, Rufus actually _saw_ Reno undress, actually got to _see_ that ivory skin revealed fully. Only once had Reno ever been fully nude with him, and the moment had passed so quickly and under such emotional stress that Rufus couldn't clearly remember anything about what he'd seen—albeit, very little, thanks to the covers. Now, Reno sat on the edge of the bed while Rufus stood there staring at him and removed his heavy boots and socks before standing to shove those pants away.

Those tattoos extended down the top of his thighs to end in points just above his knees, wrapping around from his sides and his hips, entirely surrounding his smooth groin. The combined effect of all that white, unblemished skin, those clamoring tattoos, and that heavy piercing was overwhelmingly sensual and Rufus found himself gasping for breath, eyes wide.

Reno cocked his head in a gesture Rufus had seen him use countless times, only now it lacked that amused reserve, that mask of disdain. His narrow, beautiful face was suffused with something hungry and dangerous and utterly foreign to him.

When he held out his hand, Rufus grabbed on like it was his lifeline.

He pushed his face up beneath Reno's jaw, clutching at him with both hands, pressing his wet lips to the pulse that throbbed beneath the delicate skin of his throat, feeling those rings press against his own chest, his own navel, feeling that heavy piercing rub against him when his hips moved up to sandwich his erection between them. He closed his eyes and lapped at that milky white skin while those hard, calloused hands just slipped down his back to cup his taut backside.

In a second they were tumbling backwards, Reno using his slender weight to pull Rufus along atop him, bouncing against the mattress. And still those slender, amazingly strong arms encircled him, not giving any space between their bodies. Rufus wriggled against him in drunken, restless anticipation, reveling in the fact that he was finally allowed to touch him and wondering what awful promise he was agreeing to with his eagerness. Would it matter if he knew? The answer was, no, it wouldn't—for Reno, he would do anything, anything at all.

Reno twisted beneath him, putting Rufus at his side, both of them lying facing each other in the dark. He pushed Rufus onto his back a little, peering down at him with the faint light catching his big, hazy blue eyes. With a deliberate, slow movement, his face set in something Rufus couldn't define, Reno untangled one arm from beneath him and brushed his fingers down Rufus's chest.

It was the left side. The _scarred_ side, and Reno's calloused fingertips were feather-light, tracing the edges of that wasted and rippled horror.

Rufus blushed, his ardor forgotten in the face of his shame.

"Please don't…" he whispered, but he didn't move to stop him.

"Why?" Reno asked, his attention on his fingers, one long leg between Rufus's, the skin smooth with no sign of rough hair, nowhere on that slender body but for his angled eyebrows and that amazing eruption of red spiky hair on his head. The long trail of his ponytail spilled down his back and behind his arm to tickle Rufus's belly, adding its own amount of distraction.

"It's…I…It's just…" he could offer no reason, not when Reno was just smoothing his fingers over that awful skin, absorbed curiosity on his face. "I hate it."

Reno's blue eyes flicked up to his, hazy with booze and a little out of rational thought. His fingers swept down the rippled flesh to Rufus's hip and back up to where it just touched the bottom of his nipple.

"You shouldn't hate it," Reno told him, and shook his head a little, making Rufus wonder suddenly if Reno hadn't _already_ been drunk when he'd shown up, and now was just a little more than simply buzzed.

"It's ugly," Rufus argued, his blush strengthening with the intense interest of Reno's gaze.

"So's life," Reno told him, and he bent his head to trace the edges with his tongue.

Somehow, with Reno's lips whispering over him and his tongue laving the edges of it, Rufus's scars felt less horrifying than they ever had. While the skin didn't have the same capacity to feel as the rest of him, the point at which it met his whole flesh was doubly alive with nerves as if to make up for this shortage, and Reno's trailing tongue played them with frightening skill until Rufus found himself growing hard again. He wriggled beneath him, shocked and amazed all over again that the man was actually _touching_ him, was so gently nibbling and sucking his way over the ragged edges of those old, raw wounds as if they held some kind of beauty that only he could see or appreciate.

His hand moved to Reno's hair, shockingly silky and soft, trailing though his fingers like cobwebs. Almost absently, Reno lifted one steadying hand to pluck the tie from his hair, letting it spill out down his back. There was much more of it than Rufus had first assumed, and it was thick in his palm when he grasped it and held that mouth to his skin.

When Reno's tongue found the scar that trailed down Rufus's thigh, the man caught his breath and almost sobbed, shuddering hard as wet heat slid down the skin of his inner thigh. He closed his eyes in bliss, back arching, and nearly came undone when Reno's mouth suddenly lost interest in his scars and, instead, moved to cover the tip of his erection. He jumped, gasping, Reno's tongue cautiously laving him, lips loosely around him in a way that warmed Rufus, an inexperience that confirmed his delighted suspicions. Reno didn't suck him, he just tasted him with teeth, tongue, and lips, his head angled down so that all Rufus could see was his silky red hair. Denied the visual stimulus, it made him somehow much more sensitive to what the man was doing, and he was writhing in short order, softly pleading and even begging despite the fact that he knew another full orgasm was a little beyond him at this point. When Reno finally managed to slide all the way to the base, teeth softly scraping, tongue lashing, Rufus sobbed and bucked beneath him in desperation.

Reno lifted his head, letting Rufus slide from his mouth, his blue eyes dazed and a little lost.

"Fuck," he softly cursed, but without heat, without anger. He lifted his body like a lithe serpent, spilling back up Rufus's own body to cover him, that hungry and demanding mouth latching onto his throat to suck a mark that would last for days.

Rufus just wriggled beneath him, eyes rolling in pleasure at the thought of being marked, of having such physical and visual _proof_ that Reno had touched him. His hands swept the man's hard back, slid along his slender sides and down to his lean, taut hips.

When Reno lifted his mouth off of him and leaned up on braced arms to look down at him, Rufus saw a look on his face that he'd never expected to see.

It was possession, plain and simple. It was the look on a man's face when he sees something valuable that he owns utterly. It was a look that set fire to Rufus's body and made him burn in silent answer.

Rufus ShinRa didn't _belong_ to just anybody.

He belonged to Reno, and he had for a very long time without even knowing it.

Those long-fingered, somehow delicate hands touched him everywhere and he lay still beneath him, responsive and aching, heart thudding in his chest. Reno's mouth tasted his skin, lapped at his throat, bit at his earlobes, teased both whole flesh and scarred alike without reserve, from the sensitive brush of his inner thigh to the delicate webbing of veins at his temples—he'd never in his life been so utterly _known_ by a lover…

And while Reno touched him, Rufus touched him in return as he'd always dreamed of doing—his smooth brows, those marks curved on his cheeks, the strong slope of his shoulders. He played those rings in the man's nipples with fingers and—more bravely—tongue, tasting salty flesh and metal. He teased the ones on his chest, the one through his belly and, finally, the one through the head of his hard cock.

What shuddering pleasure it was to wriggle down that lean and lionish body, kissing his way down writhing vines and wicked thorns, drops of blood and grinning skulls, guns and pin-up girls, pierced hearts and sparrows. He had to force the thick hardness of that cock down to do so, but he laved the apex of those tattoos, the sharp angle of which was the tip of a bloody dagger. From there, he swallowed his trepidation and closed his eyes, letting his tongue feel out what his eyes feared.

He tasted of salty precum and something spicy and essentially _male_. He curled his tongue around and added metal to that heady flavor, tugging on that ring with his teeth, his tongue curling inside the hollow of it to the tune of Reno's soft moan. He lacked experience, he lacked any skill—all he had was his earnest desire to please and his need to be close to this frightening, baffling man. It was enough to teach him quickly. While the ring prevented Rufus from getting adventurous enough to attempt an actual blowjob, he did a fine job just giving him head, and Reno's hands tangled in his hair with rough insistence, just as Rufus had once daydreamed about. But, unlike that fantasy, these hands were not rough and seeking to wound—they were careful and shaking slightly, aware that a rather tender individual was attached to the other end.

When he had enough, Reno pulled Rufus back up the bed, hefting him in that easy, graceful way of his that ignored Rufus's own heavier weight and musculature. He was panting and wide-eyed, his high cheeks flushed and his beautiful mouth parted. His blue eyes sparkled in the dim light, still hazy with booze but full of honest desire. He pulled Rufus atop his hips and yanked the man down against his chest. His teeth were sharp when they sank into Rufus's earlobe, but the pain was a sweet and welcome sign that he _could_ make this taciturn and untouchable man react. Rufus felt that heavy cock twitch behind him and shuddered, wanting it with more force than he'd ever wanted anything before, even power.

"Sit on my cock," Reno panted, and bit him again in his urgency. He arched his hips beneath Rufus and tightened that crushing hold on him. "Do it!"

Rufus wasn't about to say no. He lined himself up and sank back and down on that hard, curved cock, writhing with it, the position forcing that ring against his prostate with every thrust to amazing effect. He tried to sit up, to take up his usual position, but Reno's arms were locked around him and held him down against his chest.

They moaned together, and for the first time Reno made noise during sex. Utterly lost, Rufus sighed and kissed his jaw, kissed his ear, sucked on his hoop earring. He let his hands uncurl against Reno's shoulders and swept his skin with greedy hands, panting his lust into Reno's ear while the man's narrow hips angled up to pound him roughly. Reno's low groans were more arousing than the choreographed, practiced gasps of any lover he'd ever had. His hazy blue eyes were tranquil with bliss and he held Rufus tightly to him, hugging him close while those hips snapped up in rapid rhythm.

For his part, Rufus was so aroused by Reno's sudden abandoning of all his reservations that he wriggled and writhed and clung to him, uncaring of his loud cries, uncaring that he was acting as wanton as a whore—for this small space in time Reno was his without façades, without shutting him out. He was utterly open, raw with sudden need, and in that second Rufus was pretty sure he loved him.

They flowed together like they'd been born for one another, the fit perfect, their timing to the second. Rufus was helpless in that crushing grasp and he loved every minute of it, loved when Reno's thighs spread wider, his knees drawing up a little to brace his long, slender feet on the bed, feeding leverage to the force of his thrusts.

Rufus had never felt anything that so completed him. Writhing there atop Reno's body, skin rubbing in slippery sweat, scarred flesh to painted, virgin nipples to pierced, his mouth fastened beneath the man's jaw and his hands clenched helplessly on his shoulders, Rufus felt the most encompassing pleasure of his life. It filled him up from the inside, amazing and frightening and out of control so that it spilled from his skin up between the tight press of their bodies and he couldn't keep from sobbing his pleasure aloud. His body squeezed Reno's, milked him, pulled tight in orgasm that only prolonged itself with the bliss of his heavy cock so frantically shoving.

Reno gasped for breath, panting. His arms tightened so hard around Rufus's body that his ribcage complained, but _Rufus_ never would. The man moaned a soft curse and pulled taut beneath him, his whole slender, lean body tightening as he worked towards an orgasm. His left hand—his weapon hand, the hand that wielded his EMR and had written his favors in blocky script—cupped Rufus's head with gentle insistence and held Rufus's face tight against the curve of his swan-like throat as he stiffened in a hard climax that forced the breath out of him in a shocked groan.

Rufus closed his eyes, clinging to him, unable to process what had just happened—the gentleness, the _touching_, the man's own obviously strong climax. Reno kept gasping for breath, shuddering beneath Rufus, his body rocking so roughly that the bed thumped against the wall in a hard staccato until the tension wound out of him and the pleasure faded. Rufus muffled a sob against his skin, overwhelmed to be held so tight, undone by this illusion of Reno needing him to be closer than skin allowed…an illusion of Reno _caring_.

"Holy fuck," Reno sighed, shuddering beneath him, thrusting the last of that cum up inside him before easing his hips back down and falling still. He panted breathlessly, still cupping Rufus's head to his throat, his heart pounding against Rufus's own.

Rufus shifted a little, full of cum and utterly content, even if he _was_ still really fucking drunk. Reno contained his movements, not letting go of him, keeping him snuggled against his chest. They lay that way for some time, until Reno's breathing returned to normal.

Rufus braced for rejection, for Reno to turn that temper on him. The last thing he expected was for the man to ease out of him and roll onto his side, Rufus snuggled next to him. Reno's strong, slender arm stayed curved to cup his head, the bend of his elbow at the back of Rufus's head, his palm gently cupping the top of Rufus's skull. The way they were laying, Rufus wound up nestled low on Reno's chest, so when the man lifted his knee over Rufus's side and drew him in tight like a twining vine, Rufus felt the wet heat of Reno's flaccid sex against his upper belly. He was tucked so snugly to that lean, warm body that there wasn't a breadth of space between them.

And it was better than any embrace Rufus had ever experienced in his life.

He sighed gently against the salty skin of Reno's chest, unable to resist pressing a soft kiss to that pink nipple against his lips, his tongue softly probing that heavy hoop.

Reno made a low sound and squeezed him tighter, the arm beneath the pillows shifting down to curl him around Rufus's body like a lithe, purring cat.

Shivering because this—_this_—was what he'd wanted this whole time, Rufus wrapped his arm securely over Reno's side to grip his back, squeezing him back just as fiercely. He hadn't ever realized it, but once the initial shock of regular sex with this dangerous and compelling man had died down, this easy intimacy had been what he'd so longed for. It wasn't about ownership, about possession—Reno was as tamable as the wind, a wild creature without an ounce of regret in his untouchable heart. To be touched by him had blown Rufus's mind, had been more than he'd ever expected and even more fulfilling than he'd dared dream…but to be held by him, to be acknowledged…Rufus found himself breathlessly grateful that Reno would even allow it.

It was like embracing a lissome, unpredictable tiger—that same danger, that same _awe_. He didn't care if it was the booze making Reno so warm with him, he was just pleased to be held so tenderly. Tomorrow would bring what it would but _tonight_ he was blissfully entwined with the man who'd grown to mean so much to him, despite his foul mouth, temperamental mood swings, penchant for violence, and biting sense of humor…or, maybe, _because_ of those things.

He closed his eyes and sighed again, melting into all of that leanly muscled heat, lost in the softness of that luminous skin, his hand clenched tight onto the scene of Heaven being toppled by Hell, and for the first time he found that he actually understood it.

* * *

**A/N: I realize that this might not be what you all were expecting, but I'm pretty confident in what I've done in this chapter and it's required for the rest to work right. It's all about contrast, right? Three more to go!**


	15. Chapter 15

The next morning, Rufus woke just as he'd fallen asleep—entwined in Reno's arms. It was such a warm, comforting position that his hangover didn't even break through at first. He lay there with Reno's breath stirring his hair and those slender arms loosely around him, his nose pressed into the man's moist neck and his fingers softly curled over Reno's side. He smiled against his soft skin and snuggled close, moaning a little when Reno woke with a bleary grunt.

The man seemed to wake all at once, startled by where he was and what he was doing. His arms gradually loosened and unwound, his lean body drawing away.

"Reno?" Rufus murmured, sitting up when the other man did so, concern wrinkling his brow.

Reno seemed a little shell-shocked, and not all of it was hangover. His groggy, blood-shot blue eyes took in the mussed bed with something like disbelief and he touched his loosened hair like he was shocked it was out of its ponytail.

Rufus twisted and picked up his hair tie from where it lay atop the covers. Silently, he handed it to Reno, perplexed by what seemed to be his horrified disbelief. With a sinking heart he realized that Reno might've been _far_ more drunk than he'd let on last night, and might've done things which he would never have done otherwise…

Seeking some kind of reassurance about last night, trying to recapture that intimacy and, perhaps, draw his Turk out of his sudden upset, Rufus leaned close to give him a kiss.

They hadn't kissed the night before, he remembered—never once had mouth met mouth in that easy, simple gesture of affection. Rufus hadn't known how badly he wanted it until he realized that it hadn't happened, and he cautiously touched Reno's cheek to signal his intent.

He leaned close to kiss him and Reno turned his head at the last moment, straining away. Bewildered and lost, Rufus dropped his hand, upset with himself for trying.

Reno abruptly got up and went for the bathroom.

Disturbed, Rufus scrambled from bed and gathered some clean clothes before going to clean up in the guest bathroom. When he finished, Reno was already out and dressing, silent and withdrawn.

"Reno?" he tried again. He reminded himself of that look he'd seen last night, that hungry and possessive _look_. Surely it had all been real? Perhaps Reno just needed some sign that Rufus was just as lost as he was, but still wanting to make it all…alright.

His slender body tensed, that blank, shocked look still on his face. Without acknowledging Rufus's presence, Reno tied his hair back with his hair tie, his movements sharp with anger.

"Won't you at least talk to me?" Rufus asked, smiling a little. He still felt close to him, however he behaved now. Something had changed last night and Rufus could never go back to how he'd been before. He only hoped that it had changed Reno, too.

"I don't wanna talk," Reno snapped, and brushed past him to stalk down the hallway for the door.

Rufus went after him, almost amused by the situation, it was so ridiculous. One night of really good, really _close_ sex and Reno was running? He'd always given the Turk _way_ more credit for balls!

"Reno, please don't go," Rufus tried again, attempting to placate him. He wanted him to stay, hoped they could at least _communicate_ now that they'd shown one another the depths of their involvement. Last night had left him in a wonderful mood, left him feeling playful and indulgent where Reno was concerned. Surely the man felt just as relaxed? So why was Reno acting like he'd done something wrong? Why did he seem ashamed, almost _afraid_? "You can't just go—"

"Watch me," he man said, rounding on him. His blue eyes were huge and angry, but there was something very like fear in them as well, and Rufus didn't understand it.

Reno turned from him angrily and Rufus reached out to snag him by that long ponytail. He did it out of impulse, wrapping that long red hair around his fist as a playful way to keep the man from just walking out on him as he had countless times before.

His Turk stopped walking the second he felt that touch and his body twisted. Rufus heard a soft snick and saw the flash of a blade. He didn't even have time to react; he was only able to realize with some kind of stunned, stupid awe that the blade was honed to a fine, invisible edge. It had to be, to do its work so quickly and with such devastating result. He couldn't jerk back, no—Reno was the Fastest Turk. Before he could even think of releasing that long hair the knife was out and swinging.

Rufus stared down at his hand in shocked dismay, that crimson ponytail still coiled around his fist and hanging in long, shorn strands from his fingers.

Reno was staring at him, a hard and furious light in his blue eyes, his white chest heaving with the force of his breath. His wild red explosion of spikes trembled around his face but that long fringe of red hair was gone, expertly and instantly cut through with one sure twist of his limber arm.

Christ, did he hate Rufus so much? What kind of sick, twisted thought process would lead to this self-mutilation? Rufus knew how long Reno had been growing out that narrow length of hair, it was one of the man's only vanities. That he would sacrifice it to be freed of him made Rufus blanch. Had he treated him so badly? Had he been so unkind to Reno? And he hadn't just cut it above Rufus's fist, he'd shorn it off at his pale nape, above the black tie that held it back, as if the man's touch held a taint that might travel over him, infecting him if it weren't cut off at the source.

"Why?" Rufus asked, grieving for all that glorious hair. Soft as silk, red as flame and so descriptive of the man himself—vivid, eye-catching, beautiful. Had he known what the reaction would be, he would never in a million years have so jokingly reached out and grabbed it.

Reno's eyes were still wide and angry, glittering. The faint tremors that shook his knife hand traveled to the rest of his body and he shivered, but his voice was hard when he harshly told him, "Because nobody owns me. Not even _you_."

"Reno…" Rufus trailed off, saddened. He looked down at that spill of crimson hair, somehow less vibrant for being detached from his odd and dangerous Turk. Had he done it just to spite him? Was _nothing_ what it seemed? Reno always played a deep and cunning game, was always fifteen moves ahead of Rufus, able to predict his reactions with the preternatural accuracy of a prophet. He made no move, said no word that was not somehow calculated to lead Rufus right where he wanted him. Was this just another part of the game, this violent, seemingly-impulsive reaction that bordered on desecration?

Rufus desolately looked back up into those angry, vivid blue eyes. There was still a trembling edge of danger about him, something almost panicked. Softly, Rufus whispered, "I would rather you'd have cut me, Reno, than do _this_."

Reno flinched, but that almost _fearful_ anger didn't falter.

Rufus turned away, all thoughts of games erased by this awful action. Just when he started to get comfortable, just when he started to forget that it was all just an illusion, Reno pulled another shock out of his bag of tricks to leave Rufus adrift, stunned and unhappy as his delusions were stripped from him time and again, over and over. What he shared with Reno was just prostitution without even the grace of honest transaction. It was lies and cunning all around, and it made him sad because last night had felt so _real_. Yet again, Reno had just given him the illusion of what he'd wanted…servicing the paying customer.

This was one game he had no hope of winning.

He didn't say anything to Reno. He wrapped his fingers tightly around that severed ponytail and went into his room. He didn't worry that Reno might follow him, he knew better. Why should he? Despondent, Rufus went to his dresser and curled that length of red hair into a coil before tucking it safely away into a lacquered box on his dresser. His mother had given it to him long ago, for keepsakes, for precious things. He'd scoffed at the gift, his only love being power—and he couldn't keep that in a box. He'd never had anything he valued enough to keep in such a way. It was a fitting place to bury his unhealthy fixation with Reno.

He went to his bed and sat down, slumping forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He'd been in such a good mood, feeling generous and carefree for a change. Christ, how could Reno always draw such negative reactions from him? How had his playful teasing gone so terribly wrong? He'd only wanted to enjoy the man's dubiously entertaining company, and had forgotten himself for a moment, long enough to lightheartedly reach out like he would to any normal human being he cared for. And with what result? Christ, the man could've gutted him. Instead, he'd hacked off his hair. That put Rufus in his place, didn't it? Only on Reno's terms, nothing personal. He wasn't welcome, wasn't needed—he wasn't even in a different category than the women Reno regularly serviced. His Turk was an exceptional master of illusions, it was how he got what he wanted and had nothing to do with true emotions. Rufus was inclined to believe that Reno didn't even _have_ true emotions. Perhaps he _was_ a sociopath…

Rufus took a deep breath and felt the slightest of hot, hurt tears gather at the bottom of his eyes. That violent rejection of his impulsive and blithe gesture had wounded him much more deeply than Reno's keen blade ever could. For the first time in his memory, he'd reached out for someone as an equal to be played with and teased, to share with. Reno had reacted with the same violent, recoiling horror of a man confronted with some vile monster. It had shocked Rufus and shamed him, embarrassed him and deeply hurt him.

He hadn't been joking when he'd said he'd rather Reno cut him than do _this_. Wounds of the flesh might scar, but at least they _healed_…

Worse, the subtle threat was as shocking as it was sobering—not only did Reno not want him, not only did Reno care nothing for him, he would rather submit to self-destruction than allow Rufus to reach out to him. God, it galled him how stupid he was, how deeply he'd allowed himself to become involved when Reno wanted nothing more from him than a fattened paycheck and something to abuse. The man's instinctive reaction made Rufus feel like a monster. He'd always secretly hoped that Reno found him attractive on some level, that his flawed form didn't matter to that indifferent man, that there was _some_ kind of lure that put _some_ kind of civilized veneer on what they had. The stark, ugly truth was that Reno was as repulsed by him as he should be, using him only for what he could get and able to ignore Rufus's hideous scars to that end alone. Whatever he'd hoped to gain from last night's show must be valuable indeed to make him pretend so well, to swallow down his disgust long enough to run his mouth along them…

It saddened him that it had all been just another angle to the game. This morning, Reno had felt cornered and he'd reacted instinctively with what was probably the first real emotion Rufus had ever seen from him. And what an emotion it was! Reno loathed him, and it was clear he wouldn't hesitate to do bodily harm just to escape him if the work outweighed the gain. It hadn't been spite, it hadn't been caring for Rufus or even concern, it had been a stark warning not to push the boundaries of his rigidly constructed box. The next time that blade might slice skin instead of just hair, might find some vital piece of his lovely body. An instant escape route from unwanted attention.

Holy god in heaven, it terrified Rufus to understand that Reno would be willing to do _anything_ to keep him out, to keep him away. That awful, instinctive action of his made it very clear to Rufus that if he pushed hard enough, if he asked for anything at all, Reno might just make good his threat without warning.

For both their sakes, Rufus would leave him alone. He'd give him all the money he wanted—Christ, he'd buy him a goddamned _island_ somewhere and bid him adieu, _anything_ to keep some horrible final play from being made. He'd resign his part, declare Reno the absolute winner, grovel if needs be. Whatever it would take to convince his red-headed Turk that he was the bone fide winner of their game, Rufus would do.

Because the idea of Reno hurting himself was something he simply couldn't stand to consider, and if it were his own unwanted needs that brought it about, Rufus wasn't sure he could live with the guilt.

As sad as it made him to realize he'd never have that dangerous, pitiless creature in his bed again, it was worth it to know that he could keep such an awful thing from coming to pass.

If Reno was truly so unhappy with their arrangement, then Rufus would let him go.


	16. Chapter 16

Reno wasn't at work the next day, but that was hardly unusual. Still, Rufus found himself concerned when Tseng reported it to him. Surely he was safe? Perhaps he'd just gone from Rufus's penthouse to one of his girlfriends' homes and overslept? When Rufus had finally left his room that day, Reno had been long gone.

To his relief the man came to work the next day but delivered no debt to be paid for his remarkable performance. Rufus sadly wondered if the payment Reno required was to be free of him. He stuck to his plan, willing to keep distance between them, to let Reno win. He authorized a large bonus for him and sent him a message explaining that their deal was concluded, that he'd enjoyed their game but was throwing up the white flag, so congratulations on a sweeping victory and please inform him of any way to settle their debt in a satisfactory way.

He received no reply but he hadn't expected to. Having won, Reno would simply move on. He'd gotten what he wanted from Rufus and there were other people to be used. The debt would hang over him until Reno saw an opportunity to use it to its fullest advantage. He was many things, that red-headed Turk, but he was certainly no fool.

Rufus passed the days in a fugue of misery, his gaze returning time and again to that conspicuously empty chair. It seemed to mock him with its silent presence, reminding him of the things that had happened. When Tseng came in to tell him that Reno hadn't reported for work for the past week, Rufus had the damned thing removed from his office.

"Do you want me to do stop-pay paperwork on him, Sir?" Tseng inquired, and if he found it odd to see a janitor carrying away one of the matched set of chairs, he didn't show it. He stood stiffly before Rufus's desk, a pen in his strong, blunt-fingered hands. He was the picture of grace and refinement, but Rufus had seen those same hands reach out and snap someone's neck in mid-conversation, simply because his father had made a gesture for it to be done. _Good dog_. God, how disturbing.

"Christ, no!" Rufus said, aghast. He'd told Tseng to deal with the Turks as he saw fit, that he didn't want any part in their punishments or rewards unless something truly outlandish happened. Tseng had done his best to keep the issue of Reno's truancy a _non_-issue, but after a week it simply couldn't be handled at his level anymore.

Unhappy, Rufus motioned for Tseng to sit in the remaining chair and asked, "In all honesty, Tseng, what do you think?"

"That he's a security risk and needs to be eliminated," Tseng bluntly said. He was showing that emotionless front that Rufus had seen many times over the years, enough times to know that it covered a distaste for what was being asked of him.

Rufus blanched, and whispered, "He's like a child to you, Tseng, how can you even think it?"

"The safety of ShinRa comes before family, Sir," Tseng intoned, his face smooth and calm. "But truthfully, Sir, I think he is either having a tantrum or simply gone. He has an extremely bad temper, as you know."

"Yes," Rufus murmured. "Have you started looking for him?"

"I await your orders on this, Sir," Tseng smoothly said. He made no secret of his irritation with Rufus. The remaining ShinRa's reluctance to make a firm decision regarding his AWOL Turk, thus ensuring his own safety, made Tseng angry to no end and he wasn't afraid to show Rufus that he thought the young man needed to either shit or get off the pot—make a choice or let Tseng handle it before Reno tried something crazy and forced both their hands. "A decision must be made."

Rufus arched an eyebrow at him, too confused by his misery to follow.

"When we find him, Sir, do we eliminate him or return him?"

A new dimension to the game unfolded beneath Rufus's feet, undermining his solid ground. Was _this_ how Reno claimed his prize? After Rufus declared him the winner, would he force acknowledgement by leaving the man no choice but to have him killed?

Rufus wouldn't. He _couldn't_.

"Look for him, Tseng," Rufus whispered. "He's far too valuable of an employee to lose. God, he's worked here longer than most, has upheld ShinRa through the worst of times—"

"Which makes him an uncommon threat to its continued wellbeing, Sir," Tseng pointed out. "But I will do as you wish. We will track him, and report to you for orders when he is found. A warning, Sir—Reno was a Turk. It might take some time to find him."

"It doesn't matter," Rufus sighed. "Only find him, Tseng, don't let him know we're there. I just hope he hasn't blown his brains out somewhere or done something else equally appalling…"

"We are Turks, Sir," Tseng softly reminded him. "Appalling things are the best we can hope for. I will start the search immediately."

Rufus watched him leave, bothered by it all.

He spent the nights tossing and turning, already feeling guilty, unable to sleep in his own bed. Had he put Reno in this position? Had his formal, impersonal note irritated his temper-laden Turk into pulling the final trump card out of his hat? Most nights he just got up and removed that coil of hair from its coffin, simply looking at it and wondering why the idea of Reno being lost to him was so very, very bitter.

Three days later Tseng was back in his office to give a status report. It seemed that Rude and Elena were rather resistant to the idea of finding Reno, despite Tseng's assurance that they were not expected to eliminate him.

Instead of being angry that their loyalty was questionable, it made Rufus smile sadly, pleased that his erratic, manic Turk had at least two people in the world who cared about him…besides _Rufus_, that is.

Tseng, apparently, found his smile odd, but ignored it. Discretion was so bred into him that it was a part of his bones. Instead, he withdrew a sheaf of papers from a folder in his lap and cleared his throat.

"Well," he said, looking over the report. "We've checked his apartment and those of his close friends, but we've found nothing. Though I believe Reno to be uncommonly intelligent—far too much to actually risk hanging around his usual haunts—I'll be sending Rude down to the tattoo parlor at some point to see if he's shown up there…"

Rufus snorted, unhappy and derisive. "No doubt getting more disgusting displays of violence inked onto his hide would overrule the common sense of actually _hiding_."

Tseng gave him a long, steady stare and said, as if Rufus should _know_ such a thing, "Sir, it's where Reno worked on his off-time. He's an artist, Sir. It's how we recruited both Reno and Rude."

Rufus couldn't hide his bewilderment.

Tseng sighed heavily and reminded him, "It's in his personnel file, Sir, if you'd care to look. I don't remember exactly _who_ went down there, but one of the Turks went to get a tattoo since it is—to all reports—the best place to get such things done, even if it _is_ an unsavory place. Reno and Rude worked as tattooists there, both of them considered excellent ones at that. A fight broke out with their usual rowdy crowd and the pair dispatched them with ease. It raised a few eyebrows, got some attention, and I was sent down to recruit them. However it managed to survive the place is still in business, and Reno always spent the majority of his time there practicing his trade."

Rufus felt as if his brain was swimming. In a whispery croak, he asked, "How long did Reno work there, Tseng, before we found him?"

"Years, Sir. Since he was a boy," Tseng answered, stacking the papers in his hand with the air of one whose business is concluded. "As I understand it, he learned the craft from his own father, who died while Reno was a teenager. If reports are accurate, Sir, the place is named for Reno's mother…Nina, I believe."

'_And she don't_ _have a four-leaf clover tattooed so high up on the inside of her right thigh that you gotta spread her wide just to see it…'_

_'I got it when I was a teenager, silly. I wish now that I hadn't, it's hardly proper…'_

Rufus ShinRa was almost positive that he was going to pass out.

"Sir?" Tseng asked, disturbed. "Are you quite alright? You look a little pale..."

"Fine," Rufus gasped, not fine in the least. "Find him, Tseng! Find him and bring his skinny ass back to this office right this instant!"

God, Reno had a lot of explaining to do!

"And Tseng!" Rufus called as his Turk was leaving his office. "Please do order a large bouquet of flowers to Miss Whitney for me with an abject but tasteful apology included."

Brows drawn so that the small dot on his head folded in concerned wrinkles, Tseng softly said, "Of course, Sir. I will do so immediately."

Once he was gone Rufus stared at that empty spot where that blasted _chair_ had been, his eyes wide. God, all those time's he'd mentioned Nina's, and he'd been speaking of a _place_. How could Rufus have been so terribly _stupid_? It had been in Reno's personnel file this whole time! At any second Rufus could have read it through and won the game…

But Reno had known more about Rufus than Rufus had known about himself. Reno had known that Rufus, in all of his terrible arrogance, would _never_ read his file. Why?

'_Because I never thought of him as a person with a past, just a dog at heel_,' Rufus realized, and felt terribly ashamed.

Growling at his own stupidity, Rufus turned to his small work computer and did something he should've done months ago—he accessed Reno's personnel file and began to read.

It was there, all of it, every answer to every shocked question he'd ever asked, but the truth this time. Nina's was the name of a tattoo parlor where Tseng had recruited Reno and Rude, it had survived Meteor-fall and undergone a relocation to Edge at no little expense to the owner. Rufus wasn't surprised to find the deed in Reno's name. It must have been a terribly costly venture to move that shop and all of its equipment to a brand new building…probably costly enough to require the involvement of unsavory characters loaning money…Gambling debts, Rufus's lily-white _ass_. Never one to ignore opportunity knocking, Reno had jumped at the chance to join ShinRa, and had gone to an amazing amount of trouble to ensure medical care for his ill daughter.

Christa.

"Fuck!" Rufus groaned, and banged his head on his desk. Was _nothing_ what it seemed? _Christ_! Rufus had accused him of pedophilia and Reno had just grinned at him like a delinquent and shrugged, letting him make his assumptions. Now that he recalled their interaction, it seemed less that of two lovers than that of a besotted father and his high-spirited child—the way she'd leaned on him, drawing comfort, the absent way he'd held her close as if to keep her safe. He'd teased her and played with her as any father—albeit, one rough around the edges—would, there hadn't been anything inappropriate in what Rufus had seen except what he'd _made_ for himself.

How had Reno had a child and Rufus hadn't _known_ about it? There had never been a single time when the man had missed work for a sick daughter, or to go to school functions or any of the dozens of other things that children required as they grew…Then again, he had called in "hung over" an awful lot, and was always late without excuses. He just didn't talk about her.

From what he'd read in the file, Reno couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen when she'd been born, and born with severe medical problems to boot—no wonder those hospital bills had gone unpaid! What could a father who was essentially still a child himself do about such a situation? He hadn't given her up, though. He'd raised her as best he could and let the bills pile up until Rufus had cleared them for him all these many years later. His sociopath Turk was actually a loving father—if _that_ wasn't too much to get his mind around, Rufus didn't know what was! Feral and cruel Reno raising a child alone, juggling ShinRa's demands with a sick daughter…Rufus wasn't sure he himself could've done it, and his respect for the man only heightened.

He slumped back into his chair and really _examined_ everything.

What he'd thought he'd known about that frustrating, amazingly beautiful man had been wrong. Reno had told him little lies, and Rufus knew now why he'd smirked as he'd told them—because even the tiniest amount of interest on Rufus's part would have proven him a liar. It wasn't as if he'd just made things up, no. He'd taken _Rufus's _assumptions,_ Rufus's _conceited, snobbish guesses about his doings, and had simply agreed. He'd used that preternatural intuitiveness of his to read what Rufus thought of a situation and had presented him with the worst-case scenario that he could concoct. Reno had read him like a book, seeing what Rufus thought of him, seeing what Rufus _assumed_ about him, and then he had made it appear as if he was that thing and worse. Why? Why go to all the trouble when he wasn't _half_ as indecent or lowly as he'd pretended?

A sudden, strange thought occurred to Rufus then. Reno hadn't just given him what he'd expected, he'd given him an illusion that he'd _wanted_. The truth was there, but Rufus had wanted him to be worthy only of his scorn and horror, because that had made it _easier_ to blame his attraction on Reno, _easier_ to point the finger at him and call _him_ the aberrant one. It had absolved Rufus of his unwanted responsibility where their tryst was concerned and had kept him safely unable to actually _feel_ for him. So, like a chameleon Reno had taken on the spots and stains of an utter deviant.

Just as Rufus had needed.

In the end, though, it hadn't worked. Rufus had struggled with his realization, but over the last few weeks of what they shared he'd managed to finally confess to himself that he _did_ care, that he'd cared for longer than he wanted to admit, he'd just been too frightened of Reno's reaction and his own depth of emotion to own up to it.

Was it possible that all of this effort, all of Reno's carefully constructed illusions had been borne of a similar emotion? That, far from being a sociopath, he'd been someone who was willing to mask himself for the sake of someone else? And someone willing to mask themselves for someone else didn't do it out of sudden curiosity—whatever had prompted Reno to undertake such a deception had been lying in wait for a very long time, and Rufus wondered just how long his Turk had looked at him from that god-forsaken and soon to be reinstated chair, hiding it from him behind smirks and bored looks.

It made sense, in retrospect. If he looked carefully at that last night together, hadn't Reno been almost _frightened_? He'd touched Rufus that night like he'd never done before, with such a violent torrent of responsiveness that Rufus had felt like they'd drawn closer together. Given his attitude towards Reno, given the way Rufus had always spoken to him and expected him to behave, was it so farfetched that Reno might actually think such a display would be _unwelcome_? Grounds for things to end?

And then, too, any of the many times that Rufus had tried to end it, Reno had always managed to manipulate him right back into his grasp. Like the first night they'd actually slept in the same bed together. Whenever Rufus had hit a wall of resistance and given up, Reno had unexpectedly bent to his whims and managed to hide it as selfish interest.

And that awful morning, when he'd reacted so instinctively to being trapped while he was still drunk and vulnerable…Rufus could still see in his mind's eye that gleaming blade. Such a sharp blade to cut through all of that thick, fine hair. It could just as easily have cleaved into his fingers. Reno could have pressed the barest tip of that blade against his skin and forced him to let go.

But he hadn't.

He could have whipped it against Rufus's throat with that same startling speed and scared the piss out of him.

But he hadn't.

Rufus had always likened Reno to a sociopath, and had, at times, been rather convinced that the man actually _was_. He formed no natural connections with anyone, counted only Rude as a friend, kept no lovers for longer than it took to finish his pleasure. From Rufus's former cynical vantage point, Reno was charming and hard to resist when he wanted something and would never hesitate to take it from someone weaker, but should any of them die it wouldn't bother him. His disconnected disregard made him an excellent Turk, but also a frightening parody of a human being.

But in that instant when he could have threatened, could have maimed, he'd turned that terrible temper on himself. He'd chosen to harm himself instead of Rufus; indeed, he hadn't allowed that sharp, fine blade even _near_ Rufus's fist. When it came down to a split-second decision, Reno had not hurt him. It could be years of protecting him, but Rufus didn't think that was it—even when protecting him, Reno had often used physical 'incentive' to make Rufus comply with his smaller demands. He was a bully, it was simply what he did.

For that same reason he'd hidden himself so skillfully from Rufus, Reno hadn't wanted to hurt him.

With both of them trying desperately not to let the other know how deeply they'd gotten involved, it was no wonder such a chasm of misunderstanding had opened between them. And all this time Rufus's snobbish, arrogant, and conceited assumptions had kept a wall of intentional deceit between them.

_"Christ, what kind of monster _are _you?"_

_"The kind you require, yo."_

Rufus finally—_finally_—understood all of the bits and pieces he'd been given, and his own complicity in his ignorance appalled him.

Christ, he'd been a real bastard. Never once had he considered Reno's feelings or even thought that he _had_ feelings. He'd never treated him like a person, just a thing. Even his gross attempts to get to know his Turk had been based on his own snobbish misconceptions about him. He'd never asked about Reno's home life or even thought that he might have one, no—everything was based on his conjecture, on what he'd so high-handedly _thought_ he knew, and this whole time there had been a _person_ looking back at him just waiting to be acknowledged. A person Rufus consistently and thoughtlessly treated like an animal.

Fuck. If—no, _when_—they found Reno, Rufus would personally go to him and clear all of this shit up. He didn't care if he had to make a fool of himself, if he had to beg. He would bring Reno back, if only as his Turk. Time apart had shown him that he _couldn't_, in fact, live without some sign of that insufferable man around him. No more ideas of buying him an island and sending him on his happy way. He wanted Reno back in every way that mattered, and he would make it up to him if it took the rest of his cursed, pampered life.


	17. Chapter 17

Two days later, Tseng was back in his office.

"Sir, Rude found him," he said said.

It was the best news that Rufus had ever heard in his life.

"W…where?" he asked, his breath catching in his throat.

"At his business," Tseng smoothly said, affecting not to notice. "We never dreamed he would be so careless, so it was, naturally, the lowest on our list of places to look. He has apparently moved himself and his daughter into the apartment above-stairs. It was why his prior apartment was empty when we checked. Sir? What will you do?"

Rufus was already on his feet, reaching for his jacket.

"Get Elena to pull the car around," he ordered, yanking it on with trembling hands.

"Sir, you cannot go down there without protection," Tseng softly told him. "Reno was a Turk, Sir—you could be in danger—"

"Tseng, just have Elena pull the car around!" Rufus said, and flushed when he realized how snotty he sounded. How like his _father_. He gave Tseng an imploring look and gently asked, "Please, Tseng, could you have Elena pull the car around? She is more than enough protection."

He saw the doubt on Tseng's face and knew the man was thinking of Elena actually crossing wills with Reno. The red-headed Turk would win, hands down. He hadn't been Tseng's second for nothing.

"Very well, Sir," he murmured, and dipped his gentle Wutain bow before leaving the office.

Rufus was shaking on his way down to the street, trembling with nerves and determination. Elena opened the door for him, her face grim, and drove him with silent disapproval.

"I'm not going to have him killed, Elena," he offered. He was trying. He was really _trying_. They were his people, his _Turks_—people who loved and had friends and children and families.

"It isn't really my business, Sir," Elena stiffly said.

"He's your friend, Elena," Rufus said. "That makes it your business."

Her stiff shoulders relaxed and she breathed a little easier.

"Was I the only person who didn't know he had a child?" Rufus inquired.

"Sir, only the Turks know about her now," Elena told him. "Christa was so sickly until just the past few years that Reno was always afraid she might die, so he never spoke of her to people he didn't consider family. He didn't like having to discuss her illness, he felt it was degrading to her and that such a thing shouldn't be used to define her."

"And her mother?" Rufus murmured. There had been nothing regarding a spouse or girlfriend in Reno's file, no sign of an adult female living in his apartment when Rufus had dropped by.

"Reno never knew who Christa's mother was," Elena said, shocking him utterly. "She was left on the doorstep of Nina's as a baby. Reno had a test done a few years ago, to make sure she wasn't _Rude's_—just in case, Sir. He would never have given Christa up."

"And?" Rufus asked, curious despite himself.

"She's Reno's, Sir. And he loves her more than life, he always has, though he's spoiled her something awful and turned her into the worst kind of brat…"

No wonder he'd been so lenient and indulgent with her. Rufus knew that if _he_ had a child in danger of dying, he'd do his best to make sure that child had every whim satisfied, every desire indulged, done everything possible to make that child happy. It was something to think about.

They arrived at the parlor and Elena parked around the corner before opening the door for him.

Rufus was nervous, his palms sweaty. He realized at once that he looked grossly out of place here, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He strode to the glass doors, took a deep breath, and walked inside.

Reno was sitting on a low stool, laughing at someone's tale, more relaxed than Rufus had ever seen him and more enticing than he could ever recall. He was shirtless in the swampy heat of the small shop, the colorful twists and turns of his tattoos bared for the world to see, those rings gleaming against his pale skin. A pair of oversized cargo shorts hung low on his sinewy hips, threatening to slip downwards at any moment should he decide to stand up. He wore his worn and scuffed combat boots with just the bare shadow of white socks showing above their tops. He looked liquid and graceful, unguarded, utterly in his element.

Rufus allowed the door to fall shut with a clatter, Elena taking up a position just inside it.

Reno's sparkling blue eyes landed on him and his laughter tapered off, though his easy grin remained. If he was shocked to see Rufus, he gave no sign of it, and the man didn't think for one second that this seemingly carefree demeanor was anything other than yet another carefully constructed façade. Reno was on his guard, and Rufus didn't blame him one bit.

"What you want, yo?" he asked, as if he had no idea who either Rufus or Elena was. "Lookin' for ink? You came to the right place, man."

The others in the shop went about their business, paying no mind to Reno or his potential customer.

Rufus smiled at him and went to the portfolios near the door, finding Reno's. He flipped through it, aware of those amused blue eyes following his actions. The pictures within were gorgeous, even if the subject matter wasn't always considered so. Quality and attention to detail, the subtle signs of a true artist who not only cared about his work, but loved it. Much to his amusement and embarrassment, near the front was a four-leaf clover, so high up on the inside of a tawny thigh that a protective palm hid from the camera what panties could not.

Sighing, Rufus turned back to Reno, who was exchanging low, amused conversation with a man whose entire face was covered in whorls and tribal markings.

"Something small, I think," Rufus said, getting those blue eyes to flick up to his own. He smirked at Reno and purred, "Perhaps a four leaf clover?"

Reno laughed, slumping a little farther back on his stool, his wolfish grin at once familiar and achingly missed.

"Right thigh, yeah?" he asked, and cocked his head, his grin fading to an amused smirk. "Arrogant fucking ass. And I thought you were all educated and shit, you dumb fuck."

"Dumb fuck?" Rufus echoed, and gave him a cool smile. "Well, only a dumb fuck would chase down a compulsive liar, so I guess we're even."

Reno's head cocked the other direction, his smirk fading as well. He absently reached into one cargo pocket and pulled out his cigarettes, removing one to push it into the corner of his mouth. He lit it, inhaling deeply while giving Rufus a thoughtful frown.

"What you want, yo?" he asked again. "If it's about the pay—fuck you, you shoulda shut it off sooner, you cunt."

"Why would I take you off of payroll, Reno?" Rufus asked, still standing before him. "You're my Turk, my _Fastest_ Turk. You had vacation time coming to you, but it _is_ running thin."

"How much longer?" Reno asked, a shrewd light in his blue eyes.

"Just today," Rufus murmured, and stifled a pretend yawn. He looked around the shop and commented, "What an interesting place."

"It's home," Reno shortly told him. He smoked in silence for a moment longer, and then asked, "Why you come all the way here, yo? Ain't like you to take the time. Coulda sent miss prissy-pants over there to come get me."

"I realize, Reno, that not taking the time was something I have been grossly guilty of," Rufus told him. "Had I but 'taken the time' I would have discovered yet another level to your playful little game and realized much sooner just what you were about."

Reno looked mildly annoyed and stood abruptly. Those shorts clung stubbornly to his hips, his tattoos rippling over the muscles of his lower belly in a fluid way that made Rufus want to lick them.

"Let's go in back, yo, you're getting weird," Reno shortly said, and headed to the rear office, the inked pictures on his back moving atop the supple shift of his lithe muscles.

For a brief moment Rufus was shocked not to see the rhythmic sway of that long red ponytail. It was such a part of Reno that its absence was disturbing, and Rufus felt yet another uncomfortable flood of emotion when he thought of the day that had sent Reno into hiding.

He followed the slim, supple man into a dimly lit office cluttered with magazines, spent coffee cups, and cigarette butts.

Reno leaned back against a desk, still watching him with something that approached a glower, his blue eyes wary and withheld.

Rufus closed the thin wooden door behind him, rather at a loss now that he finally had his Turk alone.

"Spit it out, I ain't got all goddamned day," Reno told him, sucking on that smoldering cigarette. He crossed his corded arms over his hard chest and waited.

"I want to know why you did it," Rufus said, watching him, trying to puzzle out some answer to even _one_ of the enigmas that constituted this dangerous and compelling man.

Reno's brows rose, a smirk curving his fine lips.

"It seemed like it might be interesting."

Bullshit.

"You were deliberately misleading me about Monica," Rufus said, calling him out. "You let me think that you'd slept with her. Why?"

Reno shrugged and stubbed out his cigarette, grinning and saying with absent casualness, "It was funny to see you so riled, yo. Such a touchy bitch."

Rufus realized that he would never get a straight answer from him, never in a thousand years.

"You knew you already had my attention," Rufus softly said, and felt a kind of triumphant glee to see Reno's eyes shutter, his face falling into that protective, blank mockery of an expression.

There was a _very_ long silence.

"You're notoriously fickle, yo," Reno finally told him, his voice neutral.

Rufus cocked his head. "And the only way to keep me interested was to play up my assumptions?"

Reno shrugged a little, bored by it all. "Whatever, yo. You do what you want, the Turks are just dogs. You get what you ask for."

"Or what I expect?" Rufus guessed, and saw a flash of some faint amusement on that cautious face, some sign that Reno was impressed with him now that he was finally digging through the layers of their game to find the heart of it. "Reno…Did you honestly believe that I would lose interest if it turned out you _weren't_ a goddamned sociopath only interested in killing, flying, booze and women—in that order?"

Reno blinked at him, watching him for a long moment.

"What makes you think I'm not, yo?"

"Because now I'm taking the time," Rufus reminded him. "I had all the answers I needed, you made sure of it—I could've read your personnel file, I could have even spoken to Tseng or _any_ of my Turks. I could have shown the least interest in you as a human being instead of just my attack dog. I could have actually fucking _listened_ to you when you spoke to me."

Reno's eyes narrowed but he didn't fidget or betray himself.

"I scared you, I see that now," Rufus sighed, still saddened by it. "You were trying to keep me safe and I wasn't interpreting it properly—I saw only what I wanted to see, and not the truth. You scared me, too, Reno. More than you can know."

Reno dropped his chin a little to stare at Rufus from the tops of his sly eyes, his face pulling tight with anger.

"Real scared, yo—you shucked me the second I stopped heeling."

Rufus flinched.

He never was very good at explanations. No wonder Reno had hidden in plain sight. He hadn't expected to be looked for.

"Reno, the way you behaved that night…" Rufus trailed off, still raw from that collision. He decided to risk making a fool of himself. He decided to risk everything. Even if he came out the loser, at least he would know he had tried. "You scared me really badly that day, Reno. Your reaction to me…well, I thought you were reacting to something else. I thought that prostituting yourself to a monster was kicking the foundation out from beneath you. I pushed, you reacted with self-destruction, it wasn't a far-fetched guess as to what would come next if I asked you for more. Only, I knew I _would_ ask you for more, Reno. I was afraid that it would end up with you dead because I wanted you, not just within the terms of our little deal, either. It scared me to death, so I cut you loose and hoped that if you ever truly needed anything, you would come to me and let me know, no expectations on my side."

Reno's narrowed eyes glittered with cold reserve and he lowly said, "Bullshit."

Rufus shrugged. "If you think that, Reno, I can't convince you otherwise. But you made me believe that you never were my lover because you _wanted_ to be, only because there was something you could gain from it—I don't blame you for that, I was a remarkably easy mark—but now I know it goes much deeper. If you want to play your games, Reno, at least play them as my Turk."

He stepped closer.

The man didn't move away.

"_I'm_ the beast," Rufus whispered. "_I'm_ the animal. All this time you were telling me that there was a living, thinking, feeling person in my grasp but the only thing my arrogant, stubborn mind would see was my Turk. I'm unutterably conceited, a perfect ass, a blue blooded idiot…"

He stopped before that slouched, tense body, standing between those spread legs, Reno's worn combat boots on either side of his expensive leather shoes.

"You really could do a lot better," he murmured, giving Reno a small smile.

The Turk just watched him, unwilling to be bought so easily. But Rufus would never buy him again, would never treat him like a _thing_, would never condescendingly assume that the man would do anything and everything he wanted or that he was even expected to.

He stepped up between those spread legs, letting his hands fall to the desk on either side of Reno's lean hips. He leaned close, giving his Turk time to pull away, to turn his head, to deny him. He felt the warm waft of the man's breath on his lips, saw something move in those shuttered eyes.

They had never shared a kiss. In all of their sordid dealings, never something so tender or personal as a simple kiss.

Rufus pressed his mouth to Reno's, as chaste a kiss there ever was. Smooth, warm skin, so soft and delicate, the same lips that had trailed hot kisses up his flesh, had sucked dark bruises on his skin. There was no cataclysm of realization, just this cautious sharing, a single moment of gentleness in something that was overwhelmingly violent and cruel.

When Reno didn't pull away, Rufus gingerly lifted his hands to cup that warm, muscled back, expecting any moment to be shoved aside and mocked. That smooth, inked skin twitched beneath his hands but Reno didn't push him away. That surprisingly soft mouth opened a little and Rufus tilted his head to fit himself better to all that wet heat. The touch of his tongue was electric, the metallic taste of another surprise piercing somehow more arousing than just that nimble tongue alone. He let one hand come up to cup Reno's jaw, to stroke him while they kissed. The man's arms stayed stubbornly crossed over his chest, but his kiss was scorching in its intensity.

Rufus found that he was trembling when they finally parted, shaken. He felt raw and exposed, but Reno needed that from him, needed him to be nothing more than tender nerve endings and utter truth. He didn't need to speak aloud the thing that had coiled in his chest, that had dictated his reactions to Reno ever since that first confrontation in his penthouse. Reno had little faith in words anyway.

Those big, glittering blue eyes were still open, still languidly shuttered. A small smirk crossed the man's fine lips. He tipped his head in much the same way as a playful dog and nipped Rufus's lower lip hard enough to sting.

It could be a subtle warning. It could be an invitation. Rufus knew that assuming it was either, both, or neither could only lead to more misunderstandings. So, instead, he sucked that full lower lip into his mouth and gave the man his own gentle nip. Whatever happened, however things fell out, hurting Reno or allowing him to be hurt wasn't something that Rufus would ever willingly do.

"I woulda come back eventually, boss," Reno finally volunteered, still wary.

Rufus gave him an inquisitive look, still so close that all he could see were those huge blue eyes fringed in thick black lashes.

"It's the only place I get to tuck people and get paid for it, yo," Reno told him.

His inked arms uncrossed to rest against the desk. No embrace, not yet, maybe not ever. Rufus would have to wait and see. He might have to wait a long time, but at least it wouldn't be a _boring_ wait.

"You do enjoy your job, don't you, Reno?" he breathed, and pressed his luck with another kiss, knowing that at any second a turn of the man's mood could send him sprawling, impatiently shoved aside.

Reno allowed it, and bit his questing tongue before giving Rufus the most thorough kiss of his life. High-bred, cultured, and spoiled Rufus ShinRa had never had someone try to crawl inside him through his mouth before, and he wanted it to happen as often as his Turk would allow.

Reno broke the kiss and grinned at Rufus. With a shrug, he said, "Yeah, you know, yo. _Dog will hunt_."

Rufus smiled at him and moved away, giving him room.

"You want anything while you're here?" Reno asked, a soft smile on his gorgeous face. He really _did_ have fine bone structure—it was something an aesthetic like Rufus had always appreciated.

"I don't know, maybe," Rufus said, and laughed when Reno cocked an eyebrow. "Maybe I'll get my tongue pierced…"

Reno chuckled, an altogether unholy gleam in his blue eyes. It was a look Rufus would _so_ enjoy getting used to.

"You want a tatt, I'll mark you up, yo," he offered, and then said with a sly look. "But it ain't free, boss."

"Reno, I would sooner expect to be given a masterpiece than not fully reimburse an artist of your caliber for his work," Rufus smoothly told him, and couldn't hide his delight when Reno smirked at him, actually taking the compliment for what it was worth instead of tossing back a snide comment.

"So, what, then? You ready to go home, yo?" Reno asked him, scratching his head in a comical way before absently rubbing his lean belly and tugging on the small ring there.

"Provided you come with me," Rufus told him, and added with a self-depreciating laugh, "Your little 'lover' can come, too."

Reno's throaty, ornery laughter was as welcome as it had been missed. He gave Rufus an indecipherable look and left the office, shouting loudly for Christa.

Rufus watched him go, admiring that lean, long back, the easy gait, the unconscious, predatory beauty of him.

No, it wouldn't be easy, and it probably wouldn't always be pretty, but at least it would _be_.

And that was enough for both of them.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, that's it! The End! If you liked it, please let me know, okay? If you're one of the "lurkers" please break your silence long enough to tell me what you thought of the end—even a "cool" (silvermane, I'm looking at YOU) or a "sucked" is sufficient, this story was an experiment for me and I can't make a decision without result. Thanks to all of you who've been reading and reviewing this whole time through my first ever "dark" fic, and I'm sorry if it wasn't as dark as it had first promised to be…maybe I just don't have it in me? Anyway, thanks to everyone! Etrixan, you're a peach, and thanks for taking a look at my squicky chapter! Much love! **

**And for the record, a warning: If you like my writing and have any interest in rereading or seeing anything I may come up with in the future, now would be a good time to check out my profile page and bookmark my Live Journal Site. In case I ever get deleted from , see, then the LJ will be the only place to find me!**


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